The Danab Brigade: Somalia's Elite Special Operations Force

Somalia is one particular country that is likely to be near the top of just about everybody’s list when it comes to war-torn conflict zones, brutal civil wars, and failed states. Between the de facto independent government in the northern Somaliland region, the autonomous state of Puntland at Somalia’s outermost tip, the fragile and often fiery Somali government, and the continued resurgence of the simultaneously Somali-ethnonationalist and jihadist terror group al-Shabaab, Somalia is among the world’s most profoundly broken nations. It is a country that seems to be very far away from ever finding its footing as a coherent sovereign state. But among the carnage and the chaos, one group of elite special operators stands out. This is not a group on loan from the United States, Europe, Russia, China, or anywhere else on Earth, but one made up of Somalis and directly loyal to the Somali National Army. They are called the Danab Brigade, and armed with the best weapons foreign aid can buy, a distinctive sky-blue beret, and a wealth of knowledge taken direct from the mouths of American Navy SEALs, they are an enigmatic and deadly force at work across the deserts of Somalia.

Key Takeaways

Formed in 2013 by the military contractor Bancroft Global Development, the Danab Brigade began with 150 recruits at Baledogle Airfield.
To avoid factionalism, Danab strictly recruits members from a diverse range of Somali clans and requires biometric screening.
The unit operates as the primary offensive force against al-Shabaab, clearing 90 percent of targets in specific contested regions since mid-2022.
Danab commandos often conduct joint missions with US Special Operations Forces, receiving critical close air support and intelligence backing.
Despite significant tactical victories, the brigade struggles to permanently hold territory due to the weakness of the regular Somali military.
The future of the Danab Brigade remains heavily dependent on continued US funding and the fragile political stability of the central government in Mogadishu.

The Historical Context of a Fractured Nation

The history of the Danab Brigade cannot be understood without context, specifically a clear understanding of what Somalia has been through over the last half-century. While Somalia has not known much peace since it first gained independence in 1950, the profoundly difficult years began in 1969, when Muhammad Siad Barre rose to power in a coup after the nation’s prior president was assassinated. Through famine and mass starvation in the 1970s, and war with Ethiopia and its Cuban allies through the 1980s, Somalia narrowly survived the Barre years. However, when he was overthrown in 1991, the entire nation descended into chaos. For the following several years, Somalia would know perpetual civil war between a wide range of warlord and militia factions, with a US-led intervention trying and failing to put a stop to the violence. Even after the Somali government technically did consolidate, that war has only continued, with intermittent flares in the bloodshed proving more than enough to keep the entire fractured nation on a knife’s edge. But since the mid-2000s, no armed group in Somalia has been quite so devastating as the al-Shabaab organization. With a name translating to "the Youth," and a history tracing back to popular guerrilla resistance against an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in late 2006, the group rapidly radicalized through the late 2000s and picked up widespread support as a popular insurgent movement. An Islamist and fiercely Somali-nationalist group, al-Shabaab claims to represent the interests of the entire Somali diaspora, even outside Somalia's own borders, and it aspires to create a new, larger Somali state under Islamic law, spanning across the African Horn. The group declared allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2012 and has long relied on suicide attacks and brutal violence to fight against the Somali government. It is known for its harsh imposition of Sharia law on the areas of Somalia that it controls, and for its continued resilience against counterattacks by the Somali government, even when the government is supported directly by foreign powers. Al-Shabaab is present all over Somalia, holding significant territory in the south, and maintaining bases even in Somaliland and Puntland, where the government in Mogadishu wields next to no power. Against al-Shabaab's rising tide, international onlookers watching Somalia understood that something more was necessary if the nation's fragile government was going to prevent a complete al-Shabaab takeover sooner or later.

American Intervention and the Birth of Danab

The solution to Somalia's escalating security crisis came by way of the United States. At that time, the US was still deeply embroiled in Afghanistan, trying to cope with the Syrian Civil War and the broader repercussions of the Arab Spring, and working overtime to create any points of stabilization that they possibly could as bulwarks in the evolving War on Terror. In Somalia, America's vision was ambitious, but precise in terms of what exactly Mogadishu would need if it was going to prevent Somalia from getting any worse. The American choice to support the Somali central government was much more one of urgent need than choice. Backing the regime in Mogadishu, despite its highly questionable activities and inner workings, was deemed better than kicking off a whole new round of large-scale civil war. In order to try and ensure Mogadishu's survival, America was going to give the government a weapon: a highly trained group of loyal Somalis who were capable of standing up to al-Shabaab in a direct firefight and coming out on top. This new group would have to include members of many Somali clans, not just one, and its members would have to be willing to work together in service to the Somali state, not their own clan leaders. They would have to be very well-trained to stand up to al-Shabaab militants who were, at that time, the most fearsome fighters in the country. Furthermore, they would have to be exceptionally brave in order to hold their ground against fighters with a deservedly terrifying reputation for their brutality in combat. The initial training and selection processes were to be carried out not by the US military, but by a private military contractor known as Bancroft Global Development. Previously known as Landmine Clearance International, Bancroft has gained a reputation for training hardened units in war-torn nations, although Somalia has since become the group's primary focus. Their trainees were a total of 150 recruits, who began the process at Baledogle Airfield, about 90 kilometers northwest of Mogadishu, in October 2013. After a six-month training course, the recruits who had made it through Bancroft's training were inaugurated into the first class of commandos. The group was given the name Danab, meaning "lightning," and by the end of 2014, the unit had swelled its ranks to include somewhere around five to six hundred commandos in total. The Danab Brigade was born, its mission was urgent, and it wasted no time getting to work.

Recruitment, Selection, and Clan Integration

In the early days of the Danab Brigade, the Somali military was not a place where the average person wanted to be. At that time, the military was only loosely held together by its few loyal officers and was hardly more of a formidable force than any of the country's patchwork of militias. Its recruits largely came from the poorest of the poor across Somalia, enticed to the military by the opportunity to make a small, but non-zero amount of money. When Danab got its start, it brought together the relatively few Somali soldiers who had been willing to distinguish themselves over and above what was expected to earn their pay, but those soldiers have since proved more than capable of surpassing expectations. Non-military recruits are also welcome in Danab, and undergo a crash course in basic training as part of their selection. All recruits are scrutinized for physical fitness, political affiliation, and socioeconomic background. They have biometric data collected and evaluated to ensure that they have not committed any known human rights violations in the past. Since the early days, Somalia has begun to target more experienced combat veterans for recruitment in Danab, especially as the Somali government has waged a more active counteroffensive against al-Shabaab and taken some steps to improve the quality of its troops overall. Highly educated Somalis are in particular demand to join Danab’s ranks, further helping to shape perceptions of the unit as some of the best that Somalia has to offer. Women, too, were allowed to qualify in Danab by 2021, and a handful have since joined the group’s ranks. Equally important within Danab is the group’s emphasis on recruiting from multiple Somali clans, in order to avoid the intense factionalism and clan loyalties that permeate all of Somali politics. After all, it would be all too easy for Danab to gain a reputation as a US-backed, highly trained enforcement arm of just one clan, and thus quickly become despised by all the others. Instead, Danab has recruited from clans representing a range of Somali federal states. In fact, one of the US’ eventual goals for the unit is to be able to deploy brigades made up of local troops in each of Somalia’s states, making the group into an elite combination of military and police forces trusted by the local population. By weighing a recruit's clan loyalties against their individual merit as a potential soldier, Bancroft and the US have been able to keep Danab from seeming like an occupying army, or an extension of the will of whatever person wields the greatest influence in Mogadishu on a given day. When a Danab recruit enters the group's selection process, they face an ordeal deeply inspired by the US Army Rangers, Special Forces operators, and Navy SEALs who have had a major impact on the unit. Soldiers who make it through the group's hazy selection trials then receive intense training on both urban and rural warfare, with an emphasis on both carrying out and dealing with asymmetric warfare that has become so commonplace across Somalia. Unlike other military elements within Somalia, Danab is expected to wage war on al-Shabaab's territory, dealing with the best of the group's fighters, and using its own tactics against it. They are also taught how to navigate through the Somali savannah, engage in combat at close quarters, and conduct raids and even helicopter insertions against enemy camps.

Combat Operations and Tactical Evolution

Although they initially received nearly all of their training from foreigners, Danab's own commandos are now responsible for handling a majority of the training of new recruits in the 2020s. Those recruits come in batches of about 350 at a time, as necessary, to replenish and slowly grow the ranks of their unit. By all accounts, the trainees within Danab's ranks have proven more than able to pick up on the hard lessons supplied to them, first by Bancroft, and then by the US Navy SEALs and other military advisors. From their start as a small platoon, the group's numbers have since swelled into a full-on brigade, with an estimated unit strength of around two thousand troops at a given time. The US wants the force to be even bigger, eventually reaching a size of three to four thousand. With that increase in size has come an increase in direct involvement from the United States; now, the United States Special Operations Command Africa and the United States Africa Command maintain a direct presence at Baledogle Airfield, sending their own elite instructors to work alongside contractors in training the next generation of Danab troops. Their garrison and headquarters at Baledogle have been significantly expanded, to the point that Danab now runs what is functionally its own command center, coordinating its own activities across Somalia. The Danab Brigade's operations are shrouded in mystery, partly owing to the secret and intense nature of many of their operations, and partly to the communications blackout that still exists over much of modern Somalia. But it is known that Danab began its work quickly after its first few platoons graduated from training. In 2017, Danab operators were on the ground alongside members of SEAL Team Six during a raid on a part of the Shebelle River called Barii, pursuing an al-Shabaab leader colloquially known as Mahad Karate. The mission was unsuccessful, and claimed the life of a Navy SEAL, Senior Chief Petty Officer Kyle Milliken. Two other SEALs were wounded, while none of the accompanying Danab commandos were hit in the firefight. Danab didn’t seem to bear the blame for the killed and wounded SEALs after the operation; in fact, it wasn’t long afterward that the US began advocating for an expanded version of the brigade. In the following years, Danab launched regular self-run operations against al-Shabaab, across a broad swath of territory in Somalia’s central and southern reaches. Frequently, they are joined by US close air support, artillery fire, and joint terminal attack controllers on the ground. Over the years, Danab’s combat medics have gotten markedly more proficient in their work, saving lives and allowing commandos to return to the fight. The commandos have also gotten very good at responding to al-Shabaab’s particular combat approach, including its surprise attacks in the savannah and its use of truck bombs, RPGs, and waves of suicide bombers. According to Foreign Policy, the group has been able to clear roughly ninety percent of al-Shabaab targets in specific areas since mid-2022, and in late 2023, Danab dismantled al-Shabaab control over three districts in the Somali province of Galmudug. Press materials circulated about the group have indicated that Danab has led the liberation of well over 100 towns and villages across Somalia, a figure that clearly distinguishes them as the only group within Somalia that is able to perform operations on that scale.

Implications and the Future of Somali Security

While the Danab Brigade has been largely successful in its combat operations against al-Shabaab, the group is often forced to watch, helpless, as much of its work is undone by the terror group after Danab moves on. Fierce as they are, the Danab Brigade is just that—a brigade of some two thousand troops, meaning that they do not have the strength by themselves to protect the targets that they seize, or hold the territory that they capture. Instead, that’s the work of the regular Somali military and, at times, forces set up by the UN to help assist with Somalia’s internal crisis. But those regular troops and UN-backed forces are simply not capable of holding out against al-Shabaab in force. Danab is, by all accounts, the tip of the spear in Somalia, but as sharp and deadly as the tip may be, the rest of the spear happens to be little more than a twig. Until, and unless, that changes, Danab’s victories will often be fleeting, and the real value to Somalia that they confer won’t necessarily be the lasting benefits of a military victory. Instead, it’s a matter of propaganda wins, and the slow, attritional progress that comes from killing members of al-Shabaab one by one. And Danab's standing inside Somalia is nowhere near as firmly entrenched as Danab would like it to be. The problem here is twofold: a lack of security inside Somalia, and a lack of reliability of American support. In Somalia itself, Danab is empowered by a government in Mogadishu that is managing to survive, but it certainly isn’t strong. If that government goes away or becomes too weak to exert its influence, Danab risks disintegration. Not only that, but Danab could very easily be co-opted by a strongman within Somalia, if such a person were able to gain enough power in Mogadishu to begin exerting unilateral authority over the military. In terms of American involvement, Danab exists at the mercy of political realities in Washington. A slash of the red pen here, a few angry politicians there, and the entire Danab project could very easily have its US support pulled out from underneath it. That risk runs all the higher as American involvement across the Middle East ramps up in 2024, creating a situation in which American political and military leaders must call into question whether their resource expenditures in Somalia are really so high on their priority list. But for as long as they do exist, Danab appears to be more than happy to carry on with their work, liberating Somalia kilometer-by-kilometer from the grasp of an incredibly violent enemy. Following one convoy of about thirty to forty Danab operators in 2022, BBC reporter Andrew Harding reported that the platoon he was traveling with was deeply motivated to continue the fight. One of the men in that platoon related to Harding a recent operation in which Danab had killed some sixty al-Shabaab fighters over the course of a day-long battle, and pushed several hundred more out of a town called Bukure. It was a battle that reflected the intensity of Danab’s adversaries, and the degree to which the terrorists are loathe to leave any territory behind; in Bukure, al-Shabaab destroyed the central water tower and set fire to much of the town on their way out. Yet, equally stunning as Danab’s combat success is the degree to which civilians are willing to speak out and directly voice their hatred of al-Shabaab, now that they are under the protection of the Danab commandoes. For the first time in generations, Somalis that have been liberated from al-Shabaab control are able to live in relative confidence. Danab is proof of concept that a multi-clan, Western-backed, meritocratic organization can exist within Somalia. Mogadishu may well have been overrun by now without them, and if Somalia is ever going to chart a real path toward a better future, it is likely to be Danab that leads the way.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did the Navy SEALs fight in Mogadishu?

The Navy SEALs were involved in operations in Somalia, including Mogadishu. In fact, a US-led intervention, including Navy SEALs, attempted to put a stop to the violence in Somalia in the 1990s. Additionally, on May 5, 2017, a US Navy SEAL, Kyle Milliken, was killed during a mission in support of Somali Army forces near Mogadishu.

How many Delta Force operators were killed in Somalia?

During the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, also known as the Black Hawk Down incident, 18 American soldiers were killed, including several Delta Force operators. This battle was part of a US-led intervention in Somalia and marked a significant event in the country's history.

Who are the special forces in Somalia?

The special forces in Somalia are known as the Danab Brigade, also referred to as the Somali Danab. They are the only special forces unit of the Somali National Army, composed of members from multiple clans. The Danab Brigade was trained by American forces, including Navy SEALs.

What is the Danab in Somalia?

The Danab Brigade, headquartered in Baledogle, a Soviet-built airport about 100km north of Mogadishu, is the special forces unit of the Somali National Army. The Danab Brigade was reconstituted as a US military base in 2012 and is trained by American forces, including Navy SEALs. The unit is known for its distinctive sky-blue beret and advanced training.

Does Somalia have fighter jets?

There is no information provided that suggests Somalia currently has operational fighter jets. The country's military capabilities have been severely impacted by decades of conflict, and its air force has not been a significant factor in recent years.

Did the US support Al-Shabaab?

The US has been actively fighting against Al-Shabaab in Somalia, providing support to the Somali government and military, including training for the Danab Brigade. The US has not provided direct support to Al-Shabaab, which is considered a terrorist organization and an enemy of the Somali government.

How can Al-Shabaab be defeated?

Defeating Al-Shabaab will likely require a sustained effort by the Somali government, supported by international partners, including the US. The Danab Brigade, trained by American forces, is playing a key role in this effort. A comprehensive approach that includes military action, counter-terrorism efforts, and addressing the root causes of extremism will be necessary to defeat Al-Shabaab.

What happened to Kyle Milliken?

Kyle Milliken, a 38-year-old senior chief petty officer and US Navy SEAL, was killed on May 5, 2017, during a Somali-led mission targeting an Al-Shabaab compound near Mogadishu. The mission was in support of Somali Army forces, and Milliken was the first US service member to be killed in Somalia since the 1990s.