BALIDHIDIN, Somalia — The dead Islamic State fighter was sprawled out on the ridge, bloodstains darkening in the sun, as a line of heavily armed Somali soldiers snaked down the mountainside to a fortified cave — their camouflage uniforms marking a new front line in the fight against the global terrorist group.

The Somali branch has become the Islamic State’s new operational and financial hub, according to U.S. Africa Command (Africom), and local officials estimate there are as many as 1,000 militants under its command. Large numbers of foreign fighters have flowed into Somalia, establishing a formidable force that now threatens Western targets. The group has also become a key source of funding for other Islamic State affiliates around the world, which have killed thousands of people, including U.S. soldiers, according to U.N. investigators.

The struggle to contain this rising threat has fallen to forces in Puntland, a remote, semiautonomous region in one of the world’s poorest, weakest nations. Puntland’s soldiers are now locked in a grinding fight — one with major international implications, but without Western support.

More than a month into their largest offensive against the group, Puntland officials say they have recaptured about 50 Islamic State outposts and small bases and killed more than 150 fighters, nearly all of them foreign. But the toll on their side is growing, too, and there are fears here about how much longer they can sustain the fight.

Washington Post reporters toured the ever-expanding battlefield in Puntland, including recently discovered Islamic State caves; spoke to imprisoned deserters who said they were forced to join the group; interviewed Somali and U.S. officials; and reviewed evidence collected from captured phones and drones. What emerges is the most complete account to date of how the Islamic State was able to regroup here over the past decade after losing its self-declared caliphate in the Middle East.

On Feb. 1, President Donald Trump ordered the first airstrike of his presidency, against senior Islamic State commanders in northern Somalia. A U.S. intelligence official, speaking like others in this story on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said the strike targeted a cell responsible for planning external attacks, including against American interests and their allies.

Beyond the strike, the Trump administration has not detailed its plans for Somalia. Africom said it was unable to comment on future policy.

For decades, Washington has sought to prop up the government in Mogadishu, but Somalia remains a fractured state. Political divisions have hampered the fight to claw back swaths of the south from the al-Qaeda-aligned militant group al-Shabab and, more recently, allowed the Islamic State to establish a foothold in the north.

The Islamic State in Somalia broke away from al-Shabab in 2015; its secretive, henna-bearded leader, Abdulqadir Mumin, is now the Islamic State’s global caliph, the U.S. military says. Unlike its rivals in al-Shabab, the Islamic State has not focused on conquering territory in Somalia; its aspirations are larger. Burrowed into the Miskad mountains, on the very tip of the Horn of Africa, it has built an international terrorism hub.

In its early days, the Somali branch received money from Iraq and Syria, but soon found its own revenue streams, raking in millions of dollars each year by extorting local businesses. Those who resisted were firebombed.

Before long, al-Karrar, the group’s regional financial office, had established a nerve center, funneling money to militants across multiple regions, in countries ranging from Turkey to South Africa, according to U.S. officials and United Nations investigators. A January 2023 raid by U.S. Special Forces on a cave complex in northern Somalia killed Islamic State financier Bilal al-Sudani. He had sent cash to Islamic State-Khorasan, the Afghan branch responsible for the 2021 Kabul airport bombing that killed 13 U.S. soldiers and at least 170 Afghans.

The Islamic State has also become a more sophisticated fighting force, employing suicide drones, long-distance snipers and bombs. Last year, its fighters defeated al-Shabab after more than a year of bloody battle, vastly expanding their territory in Puntland.

The new military offensive — planned for months and launched on Jan. 2 — was delayed while Puntland tried to negotiate support from international partners, including the United States. But the political transition in Washington hamstrung talks, according to Puntland security officials, and Trump’s pause on foreign funding has complicated them further.

An Africom official said the Pentagon was monitoring the operation but not providing any support. Puntland says it also gets no help from the Somali state, which is Africom’s main point of contact. Isolated but determined, Puntland drew up plans to go after the militants in their mountain redoubts. But the Islamic State struck first.

Deadly tactics

In the early hours of New Year’s Eve, the Somali branch sent 12 suicide bombers into the town of Dharjaale. They targeted military vehicles and blew up a cluster of nearby homes where top military and political figures were resting.

“Our men in the truck — we only found their bones,” said Mohamed Abdulhakim Salad, who witnessed the attack. None of the attackers were Somali. There were four Tanzanians, two Moroccans and two Saudis alongside an Ethiopian, a Libyan, a Tunisian and a Yemeni, the Islamic State said in a statement. The Post cross-checked their portraits with photos of the dead at the scene. The Tunisian, known as Abu Zubayr al-Tunisi, previously led a unit attacking police in Iraq before returning home to target Tunisian forces, said Mohamed Mubarak, the head of Puntland’s security coordination office, citing intelligence from his counterparts in Tunis.

Read more: The Islamic State has regrouped in Somalia — and has global ambitions

Source: Washington Post