Puntland Statedeploys new forces to Al-Miskaad as campaign against ISIS-Somalia enters ‘closing phase’
BOSASO, Somalia — Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025
- Advertisement -
Puntland State has deployed new military units to the Al-Miskaad mountain range in the Bari region as its yearlong campaign against the Islamic State group’s Somali branch moves into what officials describe as its closing phase.
Regional authorities said Monday that hundreds of recently assigned soldiers were sent to the Baallade valley and surrounding areas to reinforce and ultimately relieve frontline units engaged in Operation Hilaac over the past year. Additional forces trained in Badhan are expected to join in the coming days, part of a rotation aimed at sustaining pressure on remaining fighters.
Security officials say the ISIS-Somalia contingent no longer holds fixed bases and now moves in small groups through the Al-Miskaad escarpment, a shift they link to sustained ground operations and a surge in U.S. air power. U.S. Africa Command this year has conducted record levels of airstrikes in Somalia, including seven between Nov. 26 and Dec. 3 targeting ISIS-linked fighters southeast of Bosaso — part of a wider escalation that has brought 2025’s total to at least 109 strikes.
Assessments by Somali and Puntland State security officials indicate the group’s leadership remains in the mountains despite steady losses. On Dec. 2, officials told Hiiraan Online that Abdulqadir Mumin, the group’s founding leader and a figure U.S. authorities have linked to the movement’s global hierarchy, is still believed to be moving between caves and hardened hideouts in the Al-Miskaad range. Intelligence shared at the time indicated a Nov. 25 joint U.S.–Puntland State operation killed a senior ISIS-Somalia commander and up to 15 foreign fighters, but did not confirm Mumin’s death.
Authorities say militants are under pressure but continue exploiting the region’s difficult terrain and local economic vulnerabilities. A November investigation found ISIS fighters have purchased livestock from pastoralists at inflated prices, creating an informal supply chain that has helped sustain isolated cells in Baallade and Habley despite repeated clearing operations.
Launched in late 2024, Operation Hilaac is Puntland State’s largest anti-ISIS campaign since the 2016 Qandala offensive. According to the official record in the Puntland State counterterrorism chronicle, the operation has unfolded in multiple phases, capturing dozens of caves and outposts and prompting several senior militants to surrender. By mid-2025, Puntland State officials said they had recaptured 98% of the Al-Miskaad range, though subsequent intelligence updates revised earlier claims that Mumin had fled the area.
Senior Puntland State defense officials say the current phase — focused on pursuing the remaining mobile units — “will not cease” until all militants are killed or captured. They emphasize the administration’s priority is preventing ISIS-Somalia from rebuilding the financial and logistical networks it once used to channel money across Africa and beyond, as noted in previous U.S. Treasury and U.N.-backed assessments.
Despite battlefield gains, analysts and Puntland State commanders caution that tracking small, entrenched militant groups across remote valleys will remain difficult. Security sources estimate that more than 100 fighters, including senior figures, may be concentrated in hard-to-access pockets around Baallade and the Habley mountains, requiring persistent reconnaissance, mobility and logistics over rugged terrain.
The new deployments aim to consolidate gains and deny ISIS-Somalia any opportunity to reconstitute. Officials say rotating fresh units into Baallade and reinforcing staging sites from Badhan are intended to sustain momentum, maintain local engagement with pastoral communities and tighten control over known smuggling routes.
For Puntland State authorities, the coming weeks will test whether the combination of persistent ground pressure and targeted U.S. airstrikes can dislodge a leadership that has survived years in the Al-Miskaad caves — and whether the administration can hold the ground it says it has retaken while disrupting the financial lifelines that have kept the group alive.
Members of the Puntland State Counterterrorism Forces who have been fighting Islamic State militants, killing several of them in the Al-Miskaad mountains. (Photo: Puntland State Counterterrorism Operations)
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
