The subsidiary in Somalia, an incipient threat with increasing weight within the Islamic State

Its ability to raise funds to finance actions and attract militiamen from outside poses a long-term risk.

Oct. 20 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Islamic State affiliate in Somalia is gaining more and more weight within this terrorist organization and, although its threat at the local level does not reach the levels of Al Shabaab, the branch of Al Qaeda in the country, all experts agree that it does not It must be lost sight of due to its ability to raise funds to finance attacks in other parts of the world.

In a recent interview with Voice of America, the commander of the US Army Africa Command (AFRICOM), General Michael Langley, acknowledged that he was concerned “about the situation in northern Somalia and the growing numbers of the Islamic State.” Although he did not want to give specific figures regarding the number of combatants, he did say that in the last year they had doubled.

The latest report from the UN committee in charge of monitoring sanctions against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, published in July, indicates that it currently has between 300 and 500 fighters after having “expanded its recruitment strategy in East and North Africa.” “and also with the arrival of recruits from Yemen.

This recruitment is carried out through a network of people who search for potential combatants and are responsible for transporting them to Puntland, the semi-autonomous region in northern Somalia where the group has its main stronghold, where they are taken to training camps. .

“The physical growth of the Islamic State in Somalia is due to the growing financial role that the group intends to play in providing financial resources to the Islamic State Khorasan (the affiliate in Afghanistan) and its African affiliates,” highlights the aforementioned UN report, prepared in based on the information provided by the member states.

The key to the growing importance of the Somali subsidiary lies with Abdul Qadir Mumin, considered its leader and who is also in charge of the Al Karrar office, which coordinates the subsidiaries in East Africa, who “has taken measures to reinforce financial structure”, “has increased extortion” and is “replicating Al Shabaab’s tax collection and extortion methodology to increase the group’s resource base.

MUMIN, NEW ‘CALIPH’?

Proof of the relevance that Mumin has acquired in the ranks of the Islamic State is that in recent months there has been speculation that he could in fact be the new ‘caliph’ of the group. On May 31, the United States carried out an airstrike in northeast Somalia that targeted Moomin, who however survived.

Caleb Weiss and Lucas Weber, two experts on jihadism from the Bridgeway Foundation and Soufan Center respectively, do not see it as feasible that Moomin is the new leader of the Islamic State, of whom only his name is known but not his image, and they suggest that this could be the head of the General Directorate of Provinces, the administrative structure that supervises and manages all subsidiaries.

In a recent article about Islamic State Somalia in ‘CTC Sentinel’, the magazine of the Counterterrorism Center at Westpoint Academy, both maintain that Moomin would therefore be “the operational leader of the Islamic State.” Regardless of his actual position, they agree on pointing out the relevance that both he and the subsidiary he commands have acquired in recent times, something that Crisis Group also agrees on in another recent report.

“Over the past three years, the affiliate has grown in importance to the Islamic State’s global operations. From sending money to much of East Africa and the Middle East and beyond, to increased international recruiting and growing ties in planning international attacks, this small franchise (…) is showing that it can punch above its weight,” summarize Caleb Weiss and Lucas Webber.

Mumin defected from Al Shabaab in October 2015 to swear allegiance to the Islamic State along with a few dozen fighters, but it would not be until 2017 when the group would be recognized as a “province.” Currently, around half of its fighters would be foreigners, mainly from Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, according to Crisis Group, which highlights that in 2023 even four Moroccans were detained in Puntland.

FEW ACTIONS BUT MANY RESOURCES

Operationally, the group is not notable for its actions and in fact has not claimed any major attack in recent times. Thus, in the first half of 2024 it only claimed responsibility for three assaults, a far cry from the around 60 recorded in 2018 or 2019, and during its entire existence it has only carried out two suicide attacks, according to the Crisis Group count.

Its importance is motivated by its ability to generate funds, as highlighted in the UN committee report. According to this document, through extortion and the illicit collection of taxes he would collect about $360,000 a month, which would be $4.3 million a year. The US Treasury Department has estimated that from 2022 until last February it would have accumulated about 6 million dollars.

These funds not only finance the group in Somalia, but through Al Karrar they also serve to support the Islamic State Mozambique and the Islamic State in Central Africa, which are coordinated from this office commanded by Mumin and previously headed by Bilal al Sudani. , shot down by US special forces in 2023.

In addition, the sending of funds to the Islamic State in Turkey and Yemen has been confirmed, and also to Afghanistan, where it is believed that the attack against the Kabul airport in the midst of evacuation after the Taliban takeover in August 2021 was also confirmed. financed in part from Somalia. For all these reasons, the UN committee maintains that “it is the main source of financing” for the Islamic State as a whole.

MORE AND MORE FIGHTERS FROM OUTSIDE SOMALIA

There is also concern that fewer and fewer Somalis are filling their ranks. “An increasingly international composition gives the group greater opportunities to plan international terrorist attacks,” warn Weiss and Webber, who highlight the growing presence, for example, of North Africans, such as Moroccans or Tunisians.

These fighters “may obtain training in Islamic State Somalia training camps and then return to their home countries to carry out terrorist acts on their own or directed by the group,” they warn.

Thus, they acknowledge that there is concern that “the trajectory of the Islamic State Khorasan” could follow, the affiliate responsible for the attack on a shopping center in Moscow last January that left almost 150 dead as well as the attack in Kerman (Iran). with another hundred dead, and “develop its operational capabilities for attacks abroad and increase its efforts to incite and guide supporters to violence” in Western countries, particularly members of the Somali diaspora.

“Despite the group’s modest size,” Crisis Group points out, its persistence demonstrates that “local, national and regional security forces would do well to keep an eye on it” although the main threat in Somalia remains Al Shabaab. In this sense, the ‘think-tank’ emphasizes the importance of greater and better collaboration between the Somali Government and the authorities of Puntland, where the Islamic State has its stronghold.