BALEDOGLE, Somalia — The promise and perils of America’s counterterrorism marketing campaign had been on full show at a distant coaching base in central Somalia.

It was commencement day for 346 recruits who would be a part of an elite Somali commando unit educated by the State Division, suggested by U.S. Particular Operations forces, and backed by American air energy.

Since final August, the unit, known as Danab, has spearheaded a string of Somali military victories in opposition to Al Shabab, an Islamist terrorist group that’s thought-about the deadliest of Al Qaeda’s world branches.

“We’re extra devoted than ever,” mentioned Second Lt. Shukri Yusuf Ali, 24, who joined the unit two years in the past as considered one of its few feminine members and was lately chosen to attend the U.S. Military infantry coaching course at Fort Benning, Ga.

However unhappiness hung over the ceremony. Lots of the recruits will probably be rushed to the entrance traces to backfill two Danab battalions decimated by a Shabab assault final month that left greater than 100 Somali troopers useless or injured.

I first reported from Somalia 30 years in the past, when the U.S. army’s important mission there was to make the capital, Mogadishu, and outlying areas in a famine belt protected sufficient for help deliveries, which had been interrupted by combating amongst Somali factions.

America withdrew from the nation after the “Black Hawk Down” episode of 1993, when Somali militia fighters killed 18 American service members in a blazing battle later depicted in books and Hollywood films.

Now, almost 20 years after the rise of Al Shabab, Somalia is essentially the most energetic entrance within the “without end wars” that the USA has been waging in opposition to Islamist extremists because the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults.

The American battle in opposition to Al Shabab started in 2014 with a handful of army advisers and grew steadily to a 700-member coaching pressure that President Donald J. Trump withdrew simply earlier than leaving workplace in 2021. President Biden restored 450 of the troops final yr to advise Somali troopers combating a Shabab insurgency that also controls a lot of the nation’s south.

Somalia can be the middle of a U.S. counterterrorism drone conflict that has waned in different scorching spots like Yemen, Libya and Pakistan’s tribal areas the place U.S. airstrikes have diminished the menace. Up to now yr, the USA has carried out about 20 airstrikes in Somalia, down from a peak of 63 in 2019. Practically all the previous yr’s strikes, nevertheless, had been in “collective self-defense” of Somali forces.

I returned to Somalia this month for a uncommon embed with U.S. Particular Operations forces. The go to provided a window right into a counterterrorism world wherein a small variety of Individuals, normally removed from the entrance traces, are advising and helping Somali troops waging a ferocious day by day battle in opposition to a formidable foe.

As U.S. commandos labored with their Somali counterparts, an array of American, Somali and different African army, diplomatic and help officers expressed cautious optimism in regards to the Somali authorities’s dedication to the battle however lingering doubts over its capability to carry the bottom it retakes.

Now, within the wake of the assault on Jan. 20 in Galmudug state, in central Somalia, Somali officers have requested for extra American firepower and renewed an enchantment to Washington for extra drone strikes and looser guidelines on when they are often carried out. The request to this point has obtained a cool reception from the Biden administration, which is cautious of a deeper army dedication.

The assault got here because the Somali army pressed its monthslong offensive, with a number of highly effective native clan militias becoming a member of the battle in opposition to a terrorist group that has wreaked havoc throughout the Horn of Africa. The Somali authorities has been resupplying the clan militias with ammunition and different help.

Final Could, Somalia elected a brand new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who additionally held the function from 2012 to 2017. Since returning to workplace, he has declared an all-out conflict on Al Shabab, vowing to restrict their geographical attain and lower off their cash. Intelligence officers estimate that the group has roughly 7,000 to 12,000 members and annual earnings — together with from taxing or extorting civilians — of about $120 million.

The complete-scale offensive began quickly after Mr. Biden redeployed American trainers to Somalia. These forces solely advise and help Somali troopers and don’t conduct unilateral counterterrorism operations like the one final month by members of the Navy’s SEAL Workforce 6 that killed a senior Islamic State financier in northern Somalia.

A number of Somali, U.S. and different Western officers and analysts mentioned in interviews that the army marketing campaign has been more and more profitable, retaking dozens of cities and villages.

However different officers struck a cautionary notice about the best way forward, citing Al Shabab’s tenacity, Somalia’s historical past of dysfunction, the dizzying complexities of its clan dynamics, and a looming famine pushed by drought.

“For the approaching yr, I don’t envision a major discount in Shabab’s capabilities,” mentioned Heather Nicell, an Africa analyst with Janes, a London-based protection intelligence agency. “They’re adapting.”

Certainly, Al Shabab has responded with vicious counterattacks throughout the nation, reclaiming some territory in a seesaw battle for management. In October, the group carried out the deadliest terrorist assault in Somalia in 5 years, killing 121 folks and wounding about 300 others in a twin-car explosion that struck the Ministry of Training in Mogadishu, a metropolis of round two million folks.

Greater than 1,000 international diplomats, army trainers, U.N. employees, journalists and others function inside a safety zone close to Mogadishu’s seaside worldwide airport, largely sealed off from the metropolitan mayhem by large concrete blast partitions topped by concertina wires.

In early February, I took an Ethiopian Airways flight to town and stayed at a resort steps from the airport exit. Outdoors my resort window, a tan-camouflaged armored automobile rumbled by. Over three days, a photographer colleague, Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi, and I performed interviews within the safety zone and flew aboard an Air Drive C-130 cargo aircraft to this Somali army base 55 miles northwest of Mogadishu to observe live-fire coaching demonstrations and the commencement ceremony. We saved physique armor and helmet on the prepared in case of a Shabab assault.

The safety zone partitions can’t preserve all violence at bay. Al Shabab often lobs rounds inside, most lately on Feb. 1, when an 82-millimeter mortar slammed right into a wall adjoining to the windowless, fortress-like U.S. Embassy, injuring 4 folks.

The task is taken into account so harmful that the State Division has barred the U.S. ambassador, Larry E. André Jr., a 33-year Overseas Service veteran, from venturing into town itself. Even throughout the inexperienced zone, he travels in an armored automobile with a safety element. Mr. André has made periodic visits elsewhere across the nation, together with to the commencement ceremony.

Troopers for the Danab, which suggests lightning in Somali, are recruited by workers of Bancroft World Improvement, a Washington-based firm that for years has labored with the State Division to coach African Union troops and embed with them on army operations in Somalia.

Recruits who move bodily exams, literacy exams and safety background checks are then despatched to Baledogle, the place they bear three months of fight coaching with Bancroft instructors.

The State Division spends about $80 million a yr to coach, equip, feed, gas and supply $300 month-to-month bonuses to the Danab pressure, embassy officers mentioned.

Some critics say the present Somali operations are too depending on Danab, to the detriment of the bigger, and evidently tougher, job of build up the common Somali military.

Within the discipline, U.S. Particular Operations forces, together with Military Inexperienced Berets and Navy SEAL commandos, work carefully with particular person Danab items, advising on mission planning, intelligence gathering and troubleshooting.

When the Danab exit on operations, the U.S. advisers stay behind at small working bases however monitor dwell video feeds of the operations from surveillance drones and reconnaissance plane.

If the Somali commandos run into hassle, they first search assist from Somali items close by or Ugandan helicopter gunships. If all else fails, they name for American backup.

If the state of affairs is dire sufficient — with the enemy attacking or threatening to — the U.S. advisers can authorize a collective self-defense airstrike, as they did most lately on Feb. 21, American officers mentioned. Turkey additionally conducts airstrikes in assist of Somali companions, the officers mentioned.

America is considered one of a number of international locations advising and helping the Somali authorities in its battle in opposition to Al Shabab. Along with the African Union, Turkey and Uganda, Britain, the United Arab Emirates, Eritrea and Egypt are additionally concerned.

The hodgepodge of assist poses main challenges for Somali commanders accountable for integrating the disparate components right into a cohesive combating pressure.

“The brand new troopers are being educated in several areas by completely different international locations with completely different coaching strategies, philosophies, tools and even languages!” mentioned Omar S Mahmood, a senior East Africa analyst for the Worldwide Disaster Group in Nairobi. “The dearth of a typical base inevitably complicates efforts to develop a coherent nationwide military.”

President Mohamud is planning for the supply of providers to stabilize areas which were newly liberated and is attempting to forge stronger partnerships with each clan leaders and worldwide allies. However this clan-based strategy is unproven, some analysts say.

The Jan. 20 assault close to the village of Gal’advert had the potential to deal the Danab, and the large-scale offensive, a crippling blow. 4 car-bombers and 10 militants carrying suicide explosives vests stormed a Danab encampment at daybreak, adopted by withering heavy gunfire from about 100 Shabab fighters in what American officers known as a “catastrophic assault.”

An American airstrike in a single day scattered the Shabab fighters and the following day, surviving members of the bloodied Danab battalions joined with different Somali military items to battle again, officers mentioned.

“There are going to be casualties,” mentioned Comdr. Jonathan H., a Navy SEAL officer who’s the U.S. Particular Operations commander in Somalia. As a part of being allowed entry, The New York Occasions agreed to solely partially establish him for safety causes. “However there are going to be many extra successes in the event that they proceed constructing on the momentum. I’m cautiously optimistic in regards to the progress being made.”

On the commencement ceremony two weeks after the assault, posters emblazoned with images of the fallen Danab fighters hung in reminiscence across the military base. The camp will probably be renamed after Maj. Hassan Tuure, the Danab’s deputy commander who was killed within the assault.

For Lieutenant Ali, a former graphic artist in Mogadishu who designed the posters, there is no such thing as a giving in to the extremists.

“I’m not afraid; I’m not afraid of something,” she advised me, as we stood in a tent simply steps from the ceremony the place the a whole bunch of graduates often burst into rhythmic chants and clapping. “I need to assist the folks of Somalia. They want me.”

Charlie Savage in Washington and Declan Walsh in Nairobi contributed reporting.