Two US Navy sailors declared missing off coast of Somalia

Two U.S. Navy sailors were declared missing at sea while conducting operations off the coast of Somalia on Thursday evening, the U.S. military said in a statement on Friday.

The statement added that search and rescue operations have commenced to locate the two naval US sailors

“The sailors were forward-deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet (C5F) area of operations supporting a wide variety of missions,” the U.S. Central Command said.

Reuters news agency reports that the statement added that additional information would not be disclosed until the personnel recovery operation was complete.

The US has a small military presence in Somalia to counter the threat posed by the al-Shabaab group, which has been fighting the Somali government for several years. Al-Shabaab is regarded by the US as a terrorist group.

In addition to training Somali forces, the US has also coordinated with the Somali government to carry out strikes against al-Shabaab.

According to US Africa Command, “Al-Shabaab is the largest and most kinetically active al-Qaeda network in the world and has proved both its will and capability to attack U.S. forces and threaten U.S. security interests.”