U.S. “unnamed officials” confirmed to Reuters on Thursday that over a hundred military troops have been operating covertly in Somalia since 2007.

The mission, according to the government’s narrative, is to help Somalia fend off attacks from the al-Qaeda linked terrorist group al Shabab, which has been fighting the country’s UN-backed government for years.

The confirmation, however, was received skeptically by some who have monitored U.S. military operations in Somalia in recent years. As independent journalist Marcy Wheeler tweeted in response to the reporting:

The CIA has been known to operate on the ground in the country for years and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that drone strikes and other covert operations by the U.S. have killed dozens of Somali citizens, although it says the numbers may be higher than reported.

Not long after September 11, the military also set up camp in a base in Djibouti, and has used its proximity to the Horn of Africa to conduct drone missions in Somali and neighboring countries. The drone strikes are part of the U.S. global war on terror that critics have called endless and borderless.