Puntland State Releases Names of Nearly 50 Foreign ISIS Fighters Detained in Northeastern Somalia

GAROWE, Somalia — Puntland State authorities on Saturday released the names and photographs of nearly 50 foreign Islamic State fighters captured during military operations in the Calmiskaat mountains of the Bari region, days after declaring the yearlong campaign against the group largely complete.

Security officials said the detainees hail from at least seven countries, underscoring the transnational reach of Islamic State’s Somalia branch. The largest contingents presented were from Ethiopia and Morocco.

• Ethiopia: 18 detainees
• Morocco: 11 detainees
• Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Türkiye, Yemen and Syria: numbers not disclosed

Officials said the disclosure followed the formal conclusion of the operation in the Al-Khalifa mountains, which targeted Islamic State strongholds scattered across the rugged Calmiskaat range. Authorities said only a small number of militants are believed to be in hiding in remote areas.

Puntland State had previously estimated that more than 2,000 foreign fighters were embedded with Islamic State in the mountains before the offensive began. Officials now say between 600 and 700 militants were killed during the campaign, which punctured the group’s command structure and disrupted supply lines in northern Somalia.

The fighting marks Puntland State’s longest and deadliest confrontation with Islamic State, stretching for more than a year and exacting a heavy toll on regional forces. Puntland State officials said hundreds of soldiers and officers were killed, and others were permanently injured in the operations.

Authorities credited sustained air power and logistics from the United States and the United Arab Emirates as decisive in pushing militants from entrenched redoubts. Puntland State leaders publicly thanked both countries, saying their support degraded Islamic State’s leadership and curbed the group’s operational capacity in the Bari region.

The military gains have unfolded alongside a political dispute over security cooperation. Puntland State leaders reiterated their long-standing claim that Somalia’s federal government did not support the campaign, an assertion federal officials have rejected. Mogadishu has accused Puntland State President Said Abdullahi Deni of refusing federal involvement amid broader tensions over governance, elections and power-sharing. The rift has complicated coordination on counterterrorism efforts even as operations intensified in the north.

Analysts say the scope of foreign fighter involvement highlighted by the detainees underlines the strategic stakes of the Calmiskaat offensive, both for Puntland State and for regional and international security. Islamic State has used northern Somalia as a recruitment hub, training ground and staging point for external operations, taking advantage of difficult terrain and smuggling routes along the Gulf of Aden.

Puntland State officials said the captured fighters will be processed under existing legal frameworks but did not provide details on prosecutions, detention conditions or potential repatriation. International law and bilateral arrangements typically shape how foreign combatants are held and tried, though such cases in Somalia often move slowly and draw scrutiny from human rights groups.

The announcement amounts to a rare public accounting of Islamic State’s foreign ranks in Somalia. With large-scale combat winding down, Puntland State says it is shifting toward stabilization, persistent surveillance and targeted pursuit of remaining militants in the mountains to prevent regrouping and recruitment.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.