WASHINGTON, 05 December, 2020, (TON): President Donald Trump has ordered nearly all American troops to withdraw from Somalia, U.S. officials said on Friday, part of a global pullback by the Republican president before he leaves office next month that will also see him drawdown forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The United States has about 700 troops in Somalia focused on helping local forces defeat the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgency.

In a statement, the Pentagon sought to play down the implications of a withdrawal that experts have said could undermine security in Somalia.

“While a change in force posture, this action is not a change in U.S. policy,” the Pentagon said.

The United States already pulled out of Somalia’s cities of Bossaso and Galkayo earlier this year. As of last month, U.S. troops were still in the southern port city of Kismayo, Baledogle airbase in the Lower Shabelle region, and in the capital Mogadishu.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said nearly all U.S. forces would leave Somalia, although some would remain in Mogadishu.

Somalia has been riven by civil war since the early 1990s, but over the past decade an African Union-backed peacekeeping force and U.S. troops have clawed back control of Mogadishu and large swathes of the country from al Shabaab.

For the better part of two decades, U.S. military operations in Somalia have been shrouded in secrecy. The American-led operation in Somalia began when U.S. Marines hit the Mogadishu beaches in December 1992.