He is one of Somalia’s U.S.-trained elite fighters.
Few here would know the 23-year-old’s role as part of a new secretive Special Forces unit known as “Danab,” which means lightning.
As the name suggests, this small force of Somalia’s National Army is trained to strike with precision, targeting the country’s hot spots and terrorism targets, fashioned after the U.S. Army’s Delta Force or Navy SEALs.
For the first time, members of Danab and the CIA-trained Somali intelligence unit known as “Alpha Group,” who agreed to be interviewed on the condition they were not identified, gave detailed accounts of the extent to which the Americans are now involved in training forces in a country from which they fled two decades ago.
“Americans are completely different from the Somalis,” said the recently graduated Danab member. “They study you psychologically. Also, if you tell them you have a goal in mind, they really try to help you reach that goal. Even when we graduated, they gave us a bonus, which was not on the books.”