The Department of Defense confirmed the death of an American service member who was caught up by an indirect enemy fire during a clash with Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
The 26-year-old gallant soldier has been identified as Staff Sgt. Alexander W. Conrad of Chandler, Arizona.
Conrad was attached to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, Airborne, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Conrad was a human intelligence, noncommissioned officer. He was deployed in Somali alongside some other 800 troops southwest of Mogadishu.
The attack came one week after U.S. forces in collaboration with SNA killed 27 Al-Shabaab fighters in a lone airstrike in northwest Somalia in what officials characterized as the deadliest single U.S. airstrike in the country to date.
Another 25 Al-Shabaab were killed after the botched attack on SNA base in Sanguuni, about 50 kilometers from the port city of Kismayo.
President Trump offered his condolences to Conrad’s family on Friday via Twitter. “My thoughts and prayers are with the families of our serviceman who was killed and his fellow servicemen who were wounded in Somalia. They are truly all HEROES,” Trump said in a tweet.
