February 21, 2025

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Islamic State Somalia Remains a Potent Threat in the Horn of Africa and Beyond

AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh

Even as the Trump administration is signaling a desire to pull back from conflict zones and other global hot spots, the first several weeks of the president’s second term have witnessed multiple kinetic strikes against the Islamic State-Somalia (IS-S) branch. The group boasts approximately 1,000 fighters and has more recently been successful in expanding its influence and attracting foreign fighters to reinforce its manpower. Among its ranks are fighters from Algeria, Ethiopia, Libya, Morocco, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tanzania, Tunisia, and elsewhere. This foreign element has been overrepresented among the group’s suicide bombers.

Long overshadowed by the threat posed by al-Qaeda's Somali affiliate, al-Shabaab, IS-Somalia has taken advantage of the weak governance structures and the rugged and mountainous terrain of the Bari region to emerge as a critical operational, logistical, and financial hub of the Islamic State (IS). And while it remains unclear whether its leader Abdul Qadir Mumin also holds the position of caliph of the Islamic State (a topic of debate among jihadism experts and counterterrorism analysts), the branch over which he presides, including the critical Al-Karrar office, has cemented its reputation as both a lethal force in Somalia and a vital cog in the Islamic State’s global financial and operational network. Among the most concerning developments and perhaps a driving force behind the Trump administration’s early efforts to attack the group aggressively is that IS-S is more focused on planning and conducting external operations than on territorial expansion.

IS-S now effectively functions as the key logistical node in the organization’s global network, where it helps administer the General Directorate of Provinces, which serves as a critical lynchpin that facilitates the movement of money, foreign fighters, and institutional knowledge in the form of experienced trainers and military advisors. High-ranking members of the Somalia branch have also played an indispensable role in restructuring the group’s leadership, tactics, and strategies. At a time when many countries, including the United States, have downgraded their emphasis on counterterrorism and shifted resources toward great power competition, IS-S is seeking to take advantage of vulnerabilities and weak spots where they manifest.

The Somalia-based Al-Karrar office has also served as a critical financial hub for IS globally. The office oversees financial operations, kinetic operations, and logistics for IS branches in East, Central, and Southern Africa. The revenues made by IS-S through its extensive extortion practices of local businesses and ports have been funneled to other Africa-based IS branches––as well as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP)–– through various transaction mechanisms from cryptocurrencies to hawala transfers. Bilal al-Sudani, one of the group’s top moneymen who was killed in a January 2023 U.S. Special Forces raid, allegedly transferred funds to ISKP to help bolster that branch’s operational and organizational capabilities. IS-S has also sent money to jihadists in Türkiye, South Africa, and elsewhere.

The influx of foreign fighters in the IS-S branch represents a concerning evolution. IS-S has effectively been transformed from a relatively weak regional branch into one of IS’s most important global affiliates through international recruitment. Analysis of the profiles of some of these foreign fighters shows targeted recruiting of individuals with skills useful to the branch such as fixing cars, farming, or other technical skills. According to a 2024 report by the UN Security Council, IS-S's successes in Somalia are largely attributable to the capabilities and manpower brought in by foreign fighters. Highly successful and mediatized attacks by foreign fighters in the IS-S branch, such as the December 31, 2024 attack on a Puntland military base, may give the branch further appeal to foreign audiences, which, if successfully translated into recruitment, could also down the line be a significant facilitator of external operations by returnees. Official propaganda material from the Islamic State has openly boasted about the number of nationalities involved in attacks by IS-S, and there is an increase in IS media outlets publishing footage showing IS-S attacks and operations.

Looking ahead, one of the most urgent policy questions facing the Trump administration will be whether to keep troops in countries like Syria and Somalia, or to draw down their presence, perhaps removing them altogether. Doing so would present a serious risk to the countries where these groups operate, while also destabilizing the broader region. Additionally, with uncertainty about the continuity of USAID programs on which many of the 3 million internally displaced people in Somalia depend, recruitment efforts by IS-S may see more success. Other presidents in the past have attempted to build their legacies on avoiding foreign entanglements and focusing on domestic issues, as the Trump administration wants to do with immigration policy. Yet, as George W. Bush learned the hard way, the terrorists also have a say in this. And if U.S. retrenchment makes the world a more dangerous place, threats that are metastasizing abroad could impact the United States directly, sidelining domestic policies and presenting the Trump administration with some difficult choices in how to address instability and terrorist violence emanating from weak and failed states.