Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa al-Qaeda linked terrorists continued in 2009 when on 14 September several U.S. Navy helicopters launched a raid in Baraawe against Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, killing him as well as five other militants. Also in 2009, Operators from the SAS and the SRR were deployed to Djibouti as part of Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa to conducting operations against Islamist terrorists in Somalia; carrying out missions focusing on surveillance and targeting of terrorists, alongside their US counterparts, they have also been carrying out this role in Yemen. On 25 January 2012, two U.S. Navy Seal teams raided a
Horn of Africa Suez canal in 1869, when European powers scrambled for territory in Africa and tried to establish coaling stations for their ships, Italy invaded and occupied Eritrea. On January 1, 1890, Eritrea officially became a colony of Italy. In 1896 further Italian incursion into the horn was decisively halted by Ethiopian forces. By 1936 however, Eritrea became a province of Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana), along with Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland. By 1941, Eritrea had about 760,000 inhabitants, including 70,000 Italians. The Commonwealth armed forces, along with the Ethiopian patriotic resistance, expelled those of Italy in 1941, and took over