When U.S. Africa Command announced it had conducted an airstrike on an al-Shabaab militant in the southern Somalia town of Jilib on February 2, it included an oft-repeated line: "We currently assess no civilians were injured or killed as a result of this airstrike." But Mohamed Osman Abdi, English editor at Somalia National News Agency in Mogadishu, told The Defense Post that the casualty assessment, like many others, is wrong.... Abdi told The Defense Post that his brother-in-law's two daughters and his mother were sitting down to dinner when an explosion decimated their single-family home. One of the daughters, Nurto, about 20 years old, was killed, he said. Fatima, 15, was rushed to the local clinic with shrapnel in her right shoulder and chest. His mother-in-law is in critical condition, he says.... He said it was possible the strike may have been targeting Shabaab militants outside the house because the group fully controls Jilib, about 110 km north of Kismayo in Somalia's Middle Juba region. Abdi said he approached an American military officer from AFRICOM's communications office during a conference in Mogadishu and detailed his story hours before the command released a statement assessing that no civilians were killed. "He only said sorry about your relatives," Abdi told The Defense Post.... Ismael Mukhtar Omar, the Somalia Federal Government's official spokesperson, corroborated Abdi's account, saying he was present for the conversation with the AFRICOM officer.
