On Feb. 24, 2025, members of the Puntland Protection Forces posed subsequent to an indication in Arabic that proclaimed the mountain city of Sheebaab as a “province” of the Islamic State group. The city, situated in Somalia’s autonomous northeastern area of Puntland, was certainly one of quite a few areas that troopers from the regional authorities have taken again throughout Operation Hilaac, an ongoing marketing campaign towards fighters from the Islamic State in Somalia – the native department of the terrorist community – which started in late November 2024.
Puntland’s success in combating a rising Islamic State group presence within the northeastern area is especially notable given the relative lack of success of the central Somali authorities’s confrontation with the al-Qaida-affiliated group Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahidin – extra generally often called al-Shabab – which for about twenty years has waged conflict towards federal forces.
In distinction, safety forces within the self-declared autonomous area of Puntland have, with some key assist from worldwide companions, united to repel the Islamic State group’s advance.
The Islamic State group’s rise in Somalia
Islamist teams have been a part of Somalia’s fractured political panorama because the nation’s descent into civil conflict within the Nineteen Eighties.
They tapped into profound native dissatisfaction with warlordism, tribalism and corruption, in addition to a response to overseas intervention by Ethiopia, the US and different worldwide actors.
Al-Shabab and later the Islamic State in Somalia are essentially the most excessive manifestations of this development.
Islamic State in Somalia emerged in 2015 when a small group of al-Shabab members led by Abdulqadir Mumin – an extremist Somali preacher who beforehand lived in Sweden and the UK, the place he acquired citizenship – pledged allegiance to then-Islamic State group chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Having shaped as a neighborhood department – or “province” within the group’s self conception as a worldwide entity intent on increasing territory – Islamic State in Somalia launched its first main operation in October 2016, briefly seizing the port city of Qandala in Puntland.
Thereafter, the group retreated to its strongholds within the mountain areas inside Puntland amid stress from each the regional authorities and al-Shabab, which has cracked down on Islamic State supporters in its ranks.
But from the Puntland mountains, Islamic State in Somalia grew right into a key node of the terrorist group’s international community. It’s now a hub for transferring funds and drawing recruits from throughout Africa and elsewhere through the regional coordination workplace it operates often called al-Karrar.
One notable Sudan-born operative killed in a 2023 U.S. raid in Puntland, Bilal al-Sudani, was often called a key overseas fighter, facilitator and financier who developed Islamic State funding networks in South Africa and helped fund the group’s department in Afghanistan.
In any case, Islamic State in Somalia’s ranks have elevated steadily, from an estimated 200-300 fighters in 2016 to about 1,000 as of February 2025, in response to experiences.
Puntland pushes again
Puntland declared itself an autonomous area of Somalia in 1998 amid the continuing Somali civil conflict and has since achieved relative stability in contrast with the opposite elements of the nation, which have typically been marked by a long time of sectarian division and weak central governance.
Puntland is not any stranger to divisions in a rustic that always hinges on clan loyalties, however it has achieved a larger diploma of unity and has usually raised safety forces to defeat exterior threats, typically with appreciable overseas assist.
The dominance of a single clan, the Majeerteen, has partially probably helped facilitate this unity. Within the present operations towards Islamic State in Somalia, the autonomous Puntland authorities underneath President Mentioned Abdullahi Deni has gathered a number of disparate regional forces underneath the “Puntland Defense Forces” banner, together with clan militias, the Puntland Darawish – a regional paramilitary unit – and the Puntland Maritime Police Drive.
Troopers with the Puntland Protection Forces stand at a base previously held by the Islamic State group’s Somali affiliate in January 2025 in Puntland, Somalia.
Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Put up through Getty Photos
The Puntland Maritime Police Drive specifically has developed right into a well-trained and skilled counterterrorism unit. Based with United Arab Emirates cash and mentored by personal South African navy contractors to handle rising piracy, it has turned to combating al-Shabab and Islamic State in Somalia within the mountain areas. Certainly, it performed a number one position in taking Qandala from Islamic State management in 2016. It additionally cooperated successfully with different forces to defeat a 2016 al-Shabab try and assault Puntland from the ocean.
The U.S. and UAE have supported the Puntland authorities’s marketing campaign. In February 2025, the U.S. launched two airstrikes on Islamic State fighters, with one on Feb. 1, 2025, killing Omani-born Ahmed Maeleninine, a key recruiter, financier and facilitator. America claimed one other airstrike on March 25.
The UAE has carried out airstrikes too, probably from the massive UAE-funded Puntland Maritime Police Drive headquarters base within the main port metropolis of Bosaso.
The Puntland authorities has claimed that by its newest operation it has superior by 315 kilometers, clearing quite a few villages and outposts within the mountains.
On Feb. 11, 2025, The Washington Put up reported that regional safety forces had killed greater than 150 Islamic State members, principally overseas fighters from nations together with Morocco, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, illustrating the group’s significance as a worldwide hub for the community. The truth is, one analyst counted 118 lifeless fighters from a single encounter in early February, indicating a presumably larger dying toll. In any case, it represents heavy losses for Islamic State in Somalia, although it’s not defeated but and nonetheless numbers fighters within the tons of.
The chance of out of doors interference
All in all, Puntland has leveraged previous success combating jihadist teams in making exceptional progress in its battle towards Islamic State in Somalia.
It reveals how native and substate forces might be simpler at combating armed nonstate teams than the federal authorities, regardless of restricted assets.
Little doubt, assist from the US and UAE has aided Puntland’s anti-Islamic State push. However reliance on outdoors sources dangers creating dependence on them when native forces should finally take possession of the battle themselves.
And fewer affected person overseas supporters have been recognized to spoil the elite items they construct. This occurred with the Puntland Safety Drive, a U.S.-created particular forces unit that splintered throughout a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces from Somalia in 2021 and 2022.
There are additionally dangers that associate forces will behave badly. Whereas the Emirati mission in Puntland – in addition to in Afghanistan and Yemen – has confirmed efficient in combating jihadists, in Sudan it has been arguably disastrous. There, the UAE-backed Speedy Assist Forces paramilitary unit helped to ignite an ongoing civil conflict in 2023 throughout which its members perpetrated alleged atrocities.
Finally, it will likely be as much as Puntlanders themselves to maintain combating. Certainly, overseas assist would have little affect with out efficient native forces on the bottom with the political will to maintain the marketing campaign. Simply as Puntland has executed earlier than, so too is it now demonstrating that it’s decided to battle the menace posed by jihadist teams like Islamic State in Somalia.
