Somalia is in Washington’s crosshairs: Analyst

American political commentator and veteran journalist Jim W. Dean says Somalia has been in the United States’ “crosshairs” for a while.

“Actually, Somalia has been in the crosshairs for some time — in terms of the al-Shabab leadership [which] has been on the drone strike list for some time because they have been running major terrorist strikes. They have killed huge numbers of people,” said Dean, managing editor of Veterans Today, on Tuesday in an interview with Press TV.

“The country has just been devastated with the continuing violence,” he added.

The US military says it has carried out a drone attack targeting a senior leader of the al-Shabab militant group in Somalia.

“The strike took place in the vicinity of (the southern town of) Saakow, Somalia,” US Defense Department spokesman Mark Wright said in a statement issued on Monday.

In September, al-Shabab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane was killed in a US airstrike.

Following Godane’s death, al-Shabab appointed Sheikh Ahmed Umar Abu Ubaida as its new leader.

So far what has been done to these terrorist groups, Dean said, “leaders get knocked off, they are just replaced with someone else.”

“There doesn’t seem to be any solution. And the political solutions, whenever they have a ceasefire, it lasts anywhere from 24 hours to maybe a week or maybe a month and then something happens and they go back to fighting,” he added.

The US carries out targeted killings through drone strikes in several other Muslim countries such as Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Washington claims the targets of the drone attacks are militants, but local officials and witnesses maintain that civilians have been the main victims of the attacks.

The United Nations says the US drone strikes pose a growing challenge to the international rule of law.

Somalia has been the scene of clashes between government forces and al-Shabab militants since 2006.