The Contagion

On Feb. 1, US President Donald Trump ordered airstrikes targeting Islamic State (IS) jihadists in northern Somalia, where they have created a base for their operations in the country.

“These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our allies,” Trump said. Regional authorities said the strikes killed “key figures” of the group.

The airstrikes on targets in the Golis Mountains of the northern semi-autonomous region of Puntland were the latest to target terrorists in the Horn of Africa country. However, in the past, they have usually taken aim at the larger, more entrenched al-Shabab militant group.

But now, the growing power of IS has led the Somali government and the international community to grow increasingly concerned because the group threatens not only Somalia but also the broader region, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

“It is clear the group is growing as a threat,” wrote analysts in a report for the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. “Over the last three years, the Islamic State’s Somalia Province has grown increasingly international, sending money across two continents and recruiting around the globe.”

“There are also growing linkages between the group and international terrorist plots,” they added. And in spite of being small compared to al-Shabab, the group “is punching well above its weight internationally and has become one of the Islamic State’s most important global branches.”

In 2015, when al-Shabab militants controlled large swathes of central and southern Somalia, a few dozen of the group’s fighters defected and pledged allegiance to IS. This offshoot of IS remained small until they staged attacks in the port city of Bosaso on the Gulf of Aden and elsewhere in the region in 2017. Afterward, the US launched its first strikes on the group.

The Somalia branch began to grow in importance after IS in Iraq and Syria was mostly defeated by 2017, and many of those fighters moved to Africa. IS in Somalia also attracted militants from other parts of the continent, especially Sudan, Ethiopia, Morocco, Libya, and Tanzania, as well as from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

United Nations estimates put the group’s membership in Somalia at around 700 but local intelligence officials believe it’s as high as 1,600.

The Somali branch of the group is currently headed by Abdulkadir Mumin, who some US officials believe may be the new “emir” of IS globally – but others say he is not that high in the organization. Instead, they believe he is a key figure in the Somali branch but also may oversee IS affiliates in Africa and elsewhere. UN officials believe the Somalia branch may also oversee the terrorist group’s worldwide financial network.

Regardless, the group, which aims to create an Islamic caliphate in the Horn of Africa, is supported by IS in Yemen, which provides experts, trainers, money, weapons, and other materials, according to Australian security officials. “IS Somalia also taxes the local community, threatening harm if they do not pay,” they wrote. It recruits from the local communities, and raids those who don’t support them, it added.

The group is an enemy of al Shabab, which is allied with al Qaeda and the Houthis in Yemen.

On Dec. 31, after years of small-scale attacks, IS hit the military’s anti-terrorism unit in the Bari region of Puntland. It was a brazen attack, the most complex to date, and one that some say is an indication of the group’s growing confidence.

The attack came just after Puntland announced it would start an offensive against the group.

Soon afterward, fierce clashes broke out in Turmasaale in Puntland, a strategic location for IS because it is the militants’ main supply route, Voice of America wrote. The Puntland forces took the town and now want to dislodge the group from a nearby village.

Some analysts such as former Somali diplomat Abukar Arman say the threat of IS in Somalia is overstated, mainly to lure anti-terror funds to the country. Others dispute that characterization.

“The group’s power has not diminished – it is still quite strong,” former Puntland police chief and head of the intelligence agency, Abdi Hassan Hussein, told VOA. “And it is prepared for a long-term conflict.”