Whoever Leads Them, ISIS in Somalia Keeps Fighting — and Its Leader’s Fate Remains a Mystery
BOSASO, Somalia — After months of airstrikes, ground offensives and rumours, the fate of the man who once laid the foundation for ISIS in Somalia remains unresolved. Abdulkadir Mumin, the group’s widely recognised founder, has not been seen in public for months. His absence has left local communities, Puntland State authorities and international monitors speculating — and a violent campaign in the Al‑Miskaad mountains grinding on.
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“People here talk about him as if he is a ghost,” said a shopkeeper in Bosaso, the bustling port town that is the economic hub of Puntland State. “Some say he fled to Sudan or Mozambique. Others say he was killed by the jets. No one really knows.”
Uncertainty in the Ranks
The uncertainty over Mumin’s status is more than a curiosity: it shapes the battlefield and the calculus of both the militants and the counter‑insurgency forces arrayed against them. Somali authorities, backed by U.S. and United Arab Emirates air power, have pushed insurgents out of some of their long‑held mountain redoubts since late last year. Still, militants continue to mount IED attacks and guerrilla raids across the rugged Al‑Miskaad range.
Local and international analysts say several scenarios are plausible. Mumin could have been killed in one of the strikes and his death deliberately concealed to avoid fracturing the group. He could have slipped out of Somalia to another country in the region. Or he could simply be in hiding, incapacitated by age and distance from front‑line fighting. “It’s unlikely he’s leading men directly in the mountains now,” one security analyst said, pointing to the logistical demands of guerrilla warfare and Mumin’s profile as an ideological and organisational figure rather than a frontline commander.
Command has been diffuse in recent months. Abdirahman Fahiye, described in reports as a veteran jihadist with a reputation for hardline discipline, appears to have assumed day‑to‑day control in many areas. Another senior figure, Abdiweli Mohamed Yusuf, was reported captured in July — later clarified by some sources as a surrender rather than a battlefield arrest — and was viewed as a possible successor. Foreign commanders from the wider Horn of Africa and northern Africa are also said to exert influence within the network. Still, many of these details remain unconfirmed, reflecting the opaque and shifting loyalties inside the group.
Roots and Resilience
The Somali ISIS faction grew out of a split with al‑Shabaab roughly a decade ago, drawing fighters disillusioned with the dominant Somali militant force and pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al‑Baghdadi at the time. Under Mumin’s stewardship, the group capitalised on clan ties, local grievances and the inaccessibility of the eastern highlands to carve out a survival zone.
That survival required more than ideology. Observers say the organisation supplemented recruitment with foreign fighters and a steady flow of funds — from extortion of local businesses to illicit taxation — enabling it to buy weapons, train recruits and sustain a shadow governance structure in pockets of Puntland State. “They paid attention to money and logistics,” said Harun Maruf, a veteran Somali analyst. “That allowed them to survive where others crumbled.”
Outside Firepower, Inside Limits
The arrival of intensified air campaigns has put sustained pressure on the group. U.S. Africa Command has acknowledged strikes in the area, and UAE aircraft have also been reported operating in the theatre, supporting Somali regional forces. These operations have stripped the militants of some of their main bases and inflicted leadership losses, yet they have not ended the threat.
Counter‑insurgency experts warn that air power alone cannot finish the job. In the Al‑Miskaad mountains, militants have adapted to a campaign of attrition by using IEDs, hit‑and‑run tactics and deep familiarity with terrain. That pattern mirrors a wider global trend: when centralised jihadi organisations are weakened, localised affiliates frequently fracture into small, mobile cells that are harder to root out and more difficult to defeat with strikes alone.
For Puntland State security forces, the fight is both military and political. The militants draw some strength from exploiting clan networks, and success depends on convincing communities to reject the fighters and to cooperate with authorities — a slow, delicate process in a region where trust is easily broken and wounds from years of conflict run deep.
The Regional Dimension
Speculation that Mumin might have slipped across maritime or overland borders to places such as Sudan or Mozambique underscores the transnational reach of militant actors in the Horn and beyond. In recent years, insurgent fighters and facilitators have used porous borders and commercial shipping lanes to move personnel and materiel, complicating efforts by single states to clamp down on networks that transcend national boundaries.
That raises awkward questions for the wider counter‑terrorism effort: how do regional governments, who often lack the capacity or political will to police remote areas, coordinate with outside powers whose strikes can erode local legitimacy? How can development, governance and security be sequenced to prevent a protracted, low‑intensity insurgency that drags on for years while steadily eroding public resources?
What Comes Next?
For now, the campaign in Puntland State remains active but unresolved. Officials in Garowe and Bosaso insist they will press on until the militants are defeated. Analysts caution that a slow‑burn conflict could see the group simply adapt and persist in a different form: smaller, leaner, more embedded within communities and harder to detect.
“Even if you break up an organisation’s leadership, the ideology and the local grievances that feed recruitment remain,” said an independent Horn of Africa security consultant. “You can kill or capture leaders, but without political inclusion, reconstruction and law enforcement on the ground, the space for violence persists.”
As the dust settles each night over the highlands and the residents of Puntland State go about their work, the question hangs in the air: is the decisive hour near, or are the Al‑Miskaad mountains a clue to a longer, more durable struggle that will require far more than airstrikes to resolve?
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
