Donahue leaves Army Europe and Africa in 2026 — 68 American strikes expose the Somali front

On July 2, in Wiesbaden, General Christopher Donahue is set to leave the command of U.S. Army Europe and Africa after only eighteen months in position. The American army has provided no operational explanation. It has only announced that Major General Christopher Norrie, his deputy, will serve as acting commander.

From Washington's perspective, this is just another rotation in a series of firings and accelerated departures at the Pentagon. From the viewpoint of Kismayo, Manda Bay, or Djibouti, it is something else: the land command covering Africa is changing hands at the precise moment when the American campaign against al-Shabaab is regaining a very high tempo.

A departure that comes at a tactically bad time

Donahue was not the commander of U.S. Africa Command, but his position mattered in the daily mechanics of the African theater. U.S. Army Europe and Africa provides part of the land planning, liaisons, rotations, and support architecture for American forces engaged or prepositioned around East Africa.

On the ground, this type of command is not visible in press releases. It is seen in less spectacular things: who knows the local chief to call in Jubaland, which unit can depart from Djibouti in a few hours, which airstrip in Kenya can handle a heavier rotation, which team of advisors speaks the clan codes well enough to avoid turning intelligence into targeting errors.

This is where the timing becomes interesting. Between June 14 and 19, American forces conducted four strikes in Somalia, in the southern part of the country, particularly in Lower Juba and near Kismayo. AFRICOM speaks of operations conducted with the Somali federal government and Somali forces against al-Shabaab. The details of units and means remain classified, officially to preserve operational security.

Somalia becomes a war of tempo again

According to figures provided by AFRICOM to Antiwar.com, the United States has already conducted at least 68 strikes in Somalia since the beginning of 2026. Task & Purpose reminds us that before this new sequence in June, New America had recorded 63 confirmed strikes. The pace places Washington on a trajectory close to, or even exceeding, the record of 2025, when 124 to 126 air operations were reported according to sources.

This raw number does not tell the whole story. A strike in Somalia is not just a simple line in a table. It requires a local intelligence chain, a weather window, political authorization from Mogadishu, a capability for post-strike verification, and often, a relay base. Geography imposes its law: from Kismayo to the Kenyan border, the airstrips, lagoons, and wooded areas allow al-Shabaab to disperse its caches and cadres. It is terrain that punishes overly mechanical air campaigns.

The problem is that Washington is increasing the tempo while public visibility decreases. AFRICOM no longer systematically publishes adversary casualty assessments or detailed evaluations of civilian damage. Somali media operate under pressure. In areas controlled by al-Shabaab, access to information is itself a weapon. Therefore, one must accept a degree of uncertainty: we know that the campaign is intensifying; we know much less about what it is actually producing village by village.

Manda Bay, Djibouti, and dependence on border bases

The Somali campaign increasingly relies on border bases. Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti, remains the historical pivot. But Manda Bay, on the Kenyan coast, is gaining increasing importance. The United States has engaged in upgrading the airfield there, which is never an administrative detail in this region. A more robust airstrip means more flexibility for aircraft, evacuations, drones, reaction teams, and maintenance flows.

This logistical depth is useful, but it comes at a political price. The more strikes originate from a regional architecture, the more partner governments become co-responsible in the eyes of local populations. Kenya has known this since the Manda Bay attack in 2020. Djibouti knows it too: its territory hosts a rare concentration of foreign military presences, in a Red Sea already overloaded with tensions.

Thus, the real question is not just the number of strikes. It is the solidity of the loop between intelligence, action, and political effect. A strike that destroys an al-Shabaab cache may be militarily useful. A poorly understood, poorly explained, or contested strike by local clans can create three recruits for the group. From experience, in this type of theater, the result is measured less by the crater than by the road that becomes passable again a week later.

The black hole of cultural advisors

Another signal deserves more attention than strike press releases: Joint Special Operations Task Force - Somalia is seeking cultural and political advisors to work better with Somali, tribal, and governmental leaders. This is an implicit acknowledgment of a persistent American weakness. The United States has considerable air power, but often still lacks social depth.

Al-Shabaab, on the other hand, does not lack social depth. The group taxes, arbitrates, threatens, recruits, and infiltrates. It knows when a local rivalry can be transformed into a temporary alliance. It also knows how to survive cadre losses. Killing it from the air is possible; depriving it of its governance circuits is much more difficult.

This is where Donahue's departure takes on its African significance. An interim commander can perfectly handle the procedures. But counterinsurgency campaigns do not live solely by procedures. They thrive on institutional memory, trust relationships, and priorities maintained long enough to produce an effect. Eighteen months is short for Europe. For Africa, it is almost a blink of an eye.

The risk for 2026

The immediate risk is not the collapse of the American campaign in Somalia. The machine is too large for that. The risk is more subtle: an air campaign that continues by inertia, while political and ground adjustments lag behind. In Lower Juba, al-Shabaab does not need to defeat the United States. It just needs to survive the sequence of strikes and show the clans that Mogadishu and its partners do not sustainably hold the axes.

The next area to watch is the Kismayo-Jamaame-Kenyan border triangle. If American strikes increase there without visible improvement in road security and without credible communication on civilian damage, al-Shabaab could turn real military pressure into a political argument. This is often how invisible wars prolong: not by the absence of fire, but by the absence of control after the fire.