ISIS-Somalia leader Mumin remains at large in Bari despite U.S.–Puntland campaign

Mogadishu (HOL) — Abdulqadir Mumin, the leader of the Islamic State group’s Somali branch and a figure U.S. officials say has risen into the movement’s global leadership, is still believed to be hiding in the Al Miskaad mountains despite one of the heaviest joint U.S.–Puntland offensives yet, Somali security officials said.

The latest operation peaked on Nov. 25, when more than 200 U.S. special operations troops supported Puntland forces in coordinated ground and airstrikes on Islamic State group (ISIS) positions in the Baalade valley in northeastern Bari region, according to officials briefed on the campaign. MQ-9 Reaper drones hit compounds that intelligence services had identified as possible command centers sheltering senior ISIS figures.

Initial battlefield assessments shared with Hiiraan Online indicate the strikes killed a senior ISIS-Somalia commander and up to 15 fighters from Syria, Turkey and Ethiopia. Puntland units also say they destroyed weapons depots and equipment used to run gold-mining sites that had become an important source of revenue for the group in the Cal Miskaad range.

Despite those losses, officials say Mumin remains at large in the same rugged mountains that have housed his network for nearly a decade. Security officers in Puntland describe him as moving between caves and hardened hideouts in the Cal Miskaad highlands to avoid detection.

Roughly 200 hardened ISIS fighters are still thought to be with him, though Puntland and federal officials say the militants are under severe strain. Local sources in Bari region report that many of the remaining fighters are facing shortages of food, medicine and ammunition, and in some areas are relying on wild plants and other foraged food to survive.

Commanders involved in the joint campaign say ISIS-Somalia’s combat strength has been sharply degraded but warn that its leadership has proved resilient. They argue that pressure must remain high as long as Mumin and his core lieutenants are alive in the mountains.

The new assessment comes months after Puntland authorities said Mumin had fled the area. In June, Puntland officials announced that their forces had secured 98 percent of the Al Miskaad range, part of the same mountainous system, during “Operation Hillaac,” and said international intelligence suggested the ISIS leader had escaped the front line.

Since then, security sources say, fresh intelligence and continued contact with international partners have led them to reassess those reports. Officials now say indications point to Mumin remaining somewhere in the wider Al Miskaad chain, even as many of his fighters have been killed, captured or scattered.

Puntland leaders continue to tout progress in their campaign, stressing that the militants no longer hold the kind of fixed bases they once maintained in parts of Bari region. But they acknowledge that tracking a small, highly mobile leadership cadre in some of Somalia’s most difficult terrain remains a major challenge.

A small branch with outsized financial reach

Although ISIS-Somalia is estimated to have only a few hundred fighters, U.S. and U.N. assessments have described the group as a key financial hub for the wider Islamic State network. The U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice program in August offered up to $10 million and possible resettlement for information on the group’s financial operations, calling ISIS-Somalia a “financial artery” for ISIS affiliates in Africa and beyond.

According to that program and U.N.-backed reporting, ISIS-Somalia has raised money through extortion, money laundering, kidnapping for ransom, arms trafficking, piracy, illegal fishing and facilitating human smuggling. The group is also accused of moving funds through cash couriers, mobile money platforms and cryptocurrency to affiliates in countries including Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan.

U.S. and Somali officials have identified a structure known as the al-Karrar office, based in Somalia, as a central ISIS financial node that has helped move tens of thousands of dollars a month across regions to pay fighters and purchase weapons.

In recent years, some U.S. officials and independent analysts have said Mumin quietly moved into a higher role inside the global organization, with several assessments suggesting he may have taken on responsibility that extends well beyond Somalia. U.S. defense officials told international media in 2024 that ISIS leaders increasingly view Africa as a theater where they can invest and operate with fewer constraints than in Iraq and Syria.

Those claims have not been publicly confirmed by ISIS, and some experts remain skeptical that the group would formally elevate an African leader to the position of caliph. Even so, the growing financial and logistical role of ISIS-Somalia, combined with repeated U.S. attempts to kill Mumin, has reinforced the perception that his network has become far more important to the movement than its small size suggests.

Repeated U.S. attempts to kill Mumin

The Nov. 25 operation is the latest in a series of U.S.-backed efforts to eliminate the Somali-born cleric, whose name is also spelled Abdikadir or Abdiqadir. In late May 2024, U.S. Africa Command said it carried out an airstrike near Daardar, about 81 kilometers southeast of Bosaso, targeting ISIS militants. U.S. officials later confirmed that Mumin was the intended target and that three ISIS members were killed, but said his death could not be verified.

Somali and international reporting at the time, citing security sources, indicated that Mumin survived that strike and continued to operate from a highly secured hideout in the Al-Miskaad mountains. U.S. authorities have listed him as a “specially designated global terrorist” since 2016, citing his role in directing attacks and overseeing an ISIS cell in East Africa.

Mumin was born in Puntland and later moved to Europe, living in Sweden before settling in the United Kingdom in the early 2000s. He obtained British citizenship and became known as a hard-line preacher in London and Leicester mosques, where he was monitored by British security services and associated with several well-known extremists.

He returned to Somalia around 2010 to join al-Shabab, initially serving as a propagandist and imam. In 2015, he split from al-Shabab and pledged allegiance to the then–ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, forming a small ISIS faction in the Golis and Cal Miskaad mountains that has since morphed into ISIS-Somalia.

Over the years, his group has carried out assassinations, extortion campaigns and attacks in Puntland, while clashing at times with al-Shabab. Intelligence estimates have generally put his force at between 100 and 400 fighters, including foreign volunteers drawn from several regions.

Puntland officials say their forces will continue pursuing remaining ISIS fighters in the Cal Miskaad area and along nearby smuggling routes, focusing on both the group’s commanders and its revenue streams, including illegal mining and taxation rackets.

U.S. officials, for their part, have said their counterterrorism focus on Somalia will persist as long as ISIS-Somalia continues to act as a conduit for funds, fighters and expertise across the region.

Puntland security commanders argue that the combined pressure has pushed the group into what they describe as its final phase in northern Somalia, but they caution that dismantling a network rooted in remote mountains and transnational financial channels will likely remain a long-term effort.