Islamic State – Somalia Province
Islamic State – Somalia Province or Abnaa ul-Calipha is an affiliate of the Islamic State that primarily operates in the mountainous regions of Puntland, northern Somalia, and has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks across the country. The group first appeared in the latter half of 2015 when pro-Islamic State fighters within al-Shabaab defected and pledged allegiance to IS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The group has an estimated 500–700 fighters.
ISS remained dormant for a year after its founding but gained attention in 2016 by briefly capturing the port of Qandala. It controls a small, sparsely populated area in northern Somalia’s mountains and was officially recognized by IS leadership as Somalia Province in December 2017. While cells have periodically appeared in southern Somalia and Kenya, the primary area of operations for ISS is the Al-Madow and Golis Mountains in Puntland, where the presence of both al-Shabaab and state authorities is weak.
ISS is mainly based on a single clan, namely the Majeerteen subclan Ali Saleebaan, which inhabits the districts of Qandala and Iskushuban in Puntland, and which is the subclan that Mumin belongs to. As of September 2024, foreign fighters possibly outnumber the groups Somali members, with Ethiopians reportedly being the single largest demographic represented within the organization. Notably ISS is also the declared enemy of al-Shabaab, which considers the Islamic State a significant threat to its own predominance among Jihadist factions in Somalia.
Since December 2024, Islamic State in Somalia has escalated its operations, shifting from sporadic low-level activity to launching sustained offensives against Puntland security forces. This strategic shift has marked a new phase in the group's insurgency, with an increasing number of attacks being executed in quick succession. Many of these operations have been claimed by the Islamic State’s central media apparatus, indicating a closer alignment between ISS and IS Central. These attacks have included ambushes, targeted killings, and coordinated assaults on military outposts, signaling both a rise in operational capacity and a renewed effort to undermine Puntland’s control in contested regions.
History
Puntland–Islamic State conflict
The origins of the Islamic State in Somalia trace back to 2012, when Abdul Qadir Mumin was sent by the al-Shabaab leadership to its remote outpost in Puntland, far from the insurgent group's primary areas of operation in southern Somalia. As a cleric with little military experience, Mumin's role in Puntland was originally to attract recruits for the numerically small and militarily weak local al-Shabaab group, which was led by Mohamed Said Atom at the time. During the course of the Galgala campaign in 2014, however, Atom defected to the government, and Mumin was forced to take control of the Puntland group. Isolated in the remote north and feeling increasingly distanced from al-Shabaab, Mumin began to consider himself more ideologically and operationally independent.Meanwhile, the Islamic State had launched a propaganda campaign to convince al-Shabaab to join to them, which was "angrily refused" by al-Shabaab's central leadership. Despite this, several cells of al-Shabaab members found IS's ideology attractive or saw this new Jihadist organization as a way to challenge al-Shabaab's leadership at the time. Thus, several small pro-IS groups emerged in southern Somalia. This was however not tolerated by the Somali organization, which released statements condemning dissenters and ordered its internal security service Amniyat to arrest or kill pro-IS elements such as Hussein Abdi Gedi's faction in Middle Juba.
Mumin, however, long dissatisfied with his situation, pledged bay'ah to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State in October 2015. This caused a violent split within Puntland's al-Shabaab, as only 20 of the 300 local Islamist fighters joined Mumin, while the al-Shabaab loyalists attempted to kill these defectors. Mumin's small group proceeded to form Abnaa ul-Calipha, better known as Islamic State in Somalia, and to evade their erstwhile comrades, while recruiting new members for their cause. Al-Baghdadi and the IS leadership did not acknowledge Mumin's bay'ah, but IS central media continued to promote them in the following years While Mumin's group in the north thus managed to survive, the situation of pro-IS forces in southern Somalia consequently became even more precarious. In two notable incidents in November and December 2015, al-Shabaab attacked and destroyed two of the most important southern IS cells, namely the ones of Bashir Abu Numan and Mohamed Makkawi Ibrahim. Pro-government forces such as the Somali Armed Forces and Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a also claimed to have targeted southern IS groups. As result, IS forces in southern Somalia remained very weak, and those that survived appear to have accepted Mumin's authority over time, formally becoming part of ISS. As result, the "disparate clump of pro-Islamic State cells" in Somalia transformed into an "organized group". Most of the IS cells remaining in southern Somalia are concentrated in Mogadishu.
Rise in power and Qandala campaign
In March 2016, an ISS cell in southern Puntland was pursued by al-Shabaab fighters into Mudug; the pursuers were however attacked and completely defeated by the Puntland Dervish Force and Galmudug soldiers, thus unintentionally allowing the Islamic State militants to escape into safety. From this point onwards, ISS and al-Shabaab temporarily ceased fighting each other with the exception of some isolated incidents. Over the following months Mumin's followers built up their strength, and by April 2016 they had set up a temporary training camp named after Bashir Abu Numan, an early pro-IS dissident who had been killed by al-Shabaab in November 2015. In one of the group's propaganda videos, Mumin blessed the makeshift base as the "first camp of the Caliphate in Somalia". On 25 April, ISS also carried out its first attack on government forces, when one of its fighters detonated an IED against an AMISOM vehicle in Mogadishu. By August 2016, Mumin's cell still remained very small, probably under 100 militants, and was not yet very active. According to the United States Department of State, however, ISS began to expand in size by abducting and indoctrinating boys between 10 and 15 and employing them as child soldiers.By October 2016, ISS had claimed less than one dozen attacks overall since its foundation, showing that the group was still relatively weak. Nevertheless, the fact that many of these strikes had taken place in Mogadishu, indicated that ISS had become able to operate throughout wider Somalia, not just in its core regions in Puntland. Experts also estimated that Mumin's cell had significantly grown to up to 300 fighters. On 26 October, the group eventually launched their first major operation by targeting the major port town of Qandala. The town had both symbolic as well as strategic significance, as it could allow ISS to bolster their local support and receive more supplies from Yemen. The Islamic State fighters managed to overrun the town, meeting little resistance, and thereafter controlled it largely unchallenged until 3 December. On that day, the Puntland Security Force launched a counter-offensive, and after sporadic fighting for four days, retook Qandala on 7 December 2016. Mumin's men were forced to retreat to El Ladid, a village 30 kilometers south of Qandala, where government forces once again attacked and scattered them on 18 December. Overall, ISS suffered numerous casualties during the Qandala campaign, but had scored a symbolic victory nonetheless, having captured and held a major town for more than a month. Having established a new headquarters in the al-Mishkat Mountains, ISS subsequently managed to attract new recruits, mostly children and orphans, though also some new defectors from al-Shabaab. It also became generally more active.
Expanded terrorist attacks and announcement of Wilayat al Somal
The Qandala campaign resulted in the Puntland government as well as the African Union taking ISS more seriously, with both taking more steps to counter ISS' growing strength. In addition, ISS began to cooperate with al-Shabaab to a limited degree during the subsequent months. On 8 February 2017, ISS launched its next major attack in Puntland, with several militants of the group attacking the Village Hotel in Bosaso. A fierce shootout ensued, with the hotel's guards eventually repelling the attackers. At least four guards and two ISS fighters died during the fighting. On 28 March 2017, ISS ambushed a convoy of Puntland soldiers near Qandala. The attackers retreated into the hills after inflicting two casualties on the government forces. On 16 April, the group occupied Dasan village near Qandala, though abandoned it again after a few hours. ISS was also blamed for a roadside bomb in Galgala on 23 April that killed 8 soldiers and injured 3 others. On 23 May 2017, ISS carried out a suicide bombing, which was possibly the group's very first suicide attack. When the ISS suicide bomber tried to close in on the Juba Hotel in Bosaso, he was stopped at a military checkpoint, causing him to detonate his explosives, killing five and wounding twelve.In June 2017, a Puntland military official claimed that ISS had been reduced to around 70 active fighters, and sustained itself by stealing food and livestock from local communities. Regional expert Matthew Bryden, on the other side, said that ISS still had up to 300 fighters and had become entrenched in the eastern Galgala mountains, where it had gained the support of some local communities which felt ignored by the government. Observers also noted that ISS had significantly increased their output of propaganda material in an attempt to sway disenfranchised locals and international jihadists to their side. By late 2017, the United Nations estimated that Mumin's group was about 200 fighters strong.
In November 2017, the United States launched their first airstrikes on ISS, reportedly killing several members of the group in Buqo Valley, east of Bosaso. They failed to kill Mumin, however, who had been the main target of the bombings. Observers noted that these airstrikes indicated that the US military had come to see ISS as considerable threat to the stability of the region. On 25 December, IS released an anti-Christian propaganda video under the name "Hunt Them Down, O Monotheists", in which the Islamic State in Somalia was called Wilayat al Somal, thus seemingly elevating the group to an official province of the proclaimed worldwide caliphate of IS. Since then, however, the new name has not been consistently applied to the group by pro-IS media.