Thread by @LostWeapons

Somali special forces DANAB. Originally started out battalion sized and trained by a PMC. Past couple years US seems to have taken over and now its a brigade sized element spread across 6 sectors with the goal of locals serving their own areas.

women are front and center on a lot of their media pages

Turkey has taken on training some of their soldiers too and just finished one of the first classes

can spot some foreign looking guys in the background. then bonus pic

then some of my favs

Some more pics of western forces with Danab

Danab psyops flyers

550 Somali soldiers graduating from the Turkish program

some more pictures of Danab going through Turkish training programs

from a Danab video, might be helping train other somali army units or something but you can spot some Italian contractors it looks like. Dressed different than the Italian soldiers who have been there

Last year Italy was running the EU training program, 9 countries including serbian doctors but Italy was bulk, for the Somali army at a complex in the Mogadishu airport. They were almost hit by a VBIED last october which killed some civilians.

The attach hit an Italian armored convoy leaving the ministry of defence. Col. Stefano Santoro former commander of one of Italy's oldest calvary regiments, Piemonte Cavalleria said vehicles saved them and that the VBIED quality way below Syria/Afg ones

Seal Team 6 with Somali forces

Somali soldiers who finished Turkish commando training returning to Mogadishu. Note the Turkish MRAPS background

Turkish trained Somali soldiers on their first op with MPT-76. Then you can spot a Polaris type off-road vehicle in the background of one of their bases. Plus some more patches

Another cool Danab patch then some more Danab/SNA female soldiers

Not only is it nice seeing women integrate into African militaries but theres evidence of western forces in the background of the photos

plus a couple more photos with what looks like US Special forces M-ATVs in the background

US XVIII Airborne Corps Major giving a speech to Danab plus another Western looking guy

Pic from earlier then picture from ‘AFRICOM senior leaders visited the forward deployed unit to assess progress in enhancing Somali defense capabilities’

Some more of the Turkish trained Somali Danab commandos in their first deployments. Turkish MPT-76s and uniforms. Plus a Somali special forces communications guy

Good way to spot western forces among modest militaries is look for the antennas. Notice in these pictures the large antennas in the first photo but then none on the second photo of the budget MRAPS

then keep looking and boom, one of these vehicles doesnt look like the others :P

for a while 'they', not sure who but likely Green berets, raiders ect, were spray painting celebrities faces on the M-ATVs as the ID marks but that clearly got squashed. can't remember but 1st is from Afghanistan or syria then them crossed out in Somalia and Syria