ISIS in Africa: Terrorist organization is losing influence in Somalia (Part 3)

Mahmoud al-Batakoushi

ISIS took advantage of the political conflict in Somalia to search for a foothold, as armed groups loyal to the organization penetrated areas along the Indian Ocean coast in Somalia, utilizing the state of fragmentation and the absence of the international community.

ISIS established its state in Somalia in October 2015, when Somali terrorist Abdul Qadir Mumin, who lived for a while in Sweden and the United Kingdom before fleeing due to a security check by the domestic intelligence agencies, along with 20 other elements who were affiliated with the Somali Al-Shabaab movement, pledged allegiance to then-ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in October 2019, and began to attract new elements and launch terrorist attacks inside Somalia.

When ISIS lost its areas of influence in Syria and Iraq in 2019, Al-Furqan Foundation – one of the ISIS media arms – broadcast a video interview of the organization’s leader from an unknown location, during which he praised the terrorist groups operating in the regions of the Sahel and Sahara, Central Africa, and Somalia.

Meanwhile, media platforms affiliated with ISIS published pictures of what they said was the Dawoud camp in Somalia, which is one of the training headquarters used by the organization.

The published pictures included military exercises performed by fighters affiliated with the organization, which showed about 20 members performing fitness and shooting exercises, in addition to training for climbing mountains and hills. This is one of the few times the terrorist organization published pictures of the terrorist training camp.

The organization’s elements are based in the Galgala mountains in the Bari region of the state of Puntland in northeastern Somalia, and reports indicate that the number of ISIS fighters in Somalia is estimated at 300.

A year after declaring the pledge of allegiance to ISIS, Mumin and his fighters overran the town of Qandala in Puntland, occupying it for about two months from October 2016 until the end of that year before they were expelled by Somali and international forces. After that, ISIS in Somalia began carrying out a series of attacks against mainly police and military targets.

These operations began from Puntland and then increasingly expanded to the south until it reached Mogadishu and Afgoye.

Although ISIS in Somalia has reduced the number of its operations recently, it still poses a threat to Somalia. Perhaps one of the most important reasons for the decline is the organization’s division and disintegration, which in turn led to the existence of two opposing factions following a dispute over leadership at the end of 2020, in addition to the meager financial compensation that the organization’s fighters receive, as unmarried fighters do not receive salaries, while married ones receive $50 a month, in addition to $10-20 for every child is born, according to the age.

The total salaries are estimated between $3,000 and $9,000 per month, and the organization’s weak funding is due to the decrease in its geographical area, which deprives it of collecting resources, taxes and zakat, unlike the Al-Shabaab movement, in addition to the lack of strong links with the rest of the organization’s branches across the continent, which made many of its members in Somalia abandon it. It also experienced heavy losses at the hands of Puntland security forces and other strikes carried out by a group of Puntland security forces or Somali intelligence agencies, which arrested members of ISIS in Somalia and its southern leader in March and April 2020.

A raid in May 2020 resulted in the arrest of several ISIS members in Somalia, including the driver Abu Bakr Momen and several members of the organization’s internal police force. The same month witnessed several raids targeting weapons depots.

Perhaps the latest strike by the Somali army was the attack it launched against ISIS strongholds in the mountains of Bari, which resulted in the killing of at least 24 militants during the confrontations.