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On Feb. 24, 2025, members of the Puntland Defense Forces in Arabic that proclaimed the mountain town of Sheebaab as a “province” of the Islamic State group. The town, located in Somalia’s autonomous northeastern region of Puntland, was one of numerous areas that soldiers from the regional government have taken back during , an ongoing campaign against fighters from the Islamic State in Somalia – the local branch of the terrorist network – which began in late November 2024.

Puntland’s success in combating a growing Islamic State group presence in the northeastern region is particularly notable given the relative lack of success of the with the al-Qaida-affiliated group Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahidin – more commonly known as al-Shabab – which for about two decades has waged war against federal forces.

In contrast, security forces in the have, with some key support from international partners, united to .

The Islamic State group’s rise in Somalia

have been part of Somalia’s fractured political landscape since the country’s descent into civil war in the 1980s.

They tapped into profound local dissatisfaction with warlordism, tribalism and corruption, as well as a reaction to foreign intervention by Ethiopia, the United States and other international actors.

and later the Islamic State in Somalia are the most extreme manifestations of this trend.

Islamic State in Somalia when a small group of al-Shabab members led by Abdulqadir Mumin – an extremist Somali preacher who previously lived in Sweden and the United Kingdom, where he acquired citizenship – pledged allegiance to then-Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Having formed as a local branch – or “province” in the group’s self conception as a – Islamic State in Somalia launched its first major operation in October 2016, briefly seizing the port town of Qandala in Puntland.

Thereafter, the group retreated to its strongholds in the mountain regions inside Puntland amid pressure from both the regional government and al-Shabab, which has cracked down on Islamic State supporters in its ranks.

Yet from the Puntland mountains, Islamic State in Somalia grew into a key node of the terrorist group’s global network. It is now a from across Africa and elsewhere via the it operates known as al-Karrar.

One notable Sudan-born operative killed in a 2023 U.S. raid in Puntland, , was known as a key foreign fighter, facilitator and financier who developed Islamic State and the group’s branch in Afghanistan.

An from mid-2024 cited U.S. officials who believed Mumin, head of Islamic State in Somalia, was acting as the network’s overall leader, or caliph, though other analysts have close to caliph.

In any case, Islamic State in Somalia’s ranks have increased steadily, from an estimated in 2016 to as of February 2025, according to reports.

Puntland pushes back

Puntland declared itself an autonomous region of Somalia in 1998 amid the ongoing Somali civil war and has since achieved compared with the other parts of the country, which have generally been marked by decades of sectarian division and weak central governance.

Puntland is no stranger to divisions , but it has achieved a greater degree of unity and has regularly raised security forces to defeat external threats, often with considerable foreign support.

The dominance of a single clan, the Majeerteen, has in part likely helped facilitate this unity. In the current operations against Islamic State in Somalia, the autonomous Puntland government under President Said Abdullahi Deni has gathered several disparate regional forces under the “Puntland Defense Forces” banner, including clan militias, the Puntland Darawish – a regional paramilitary unit – and the Puntland Maritime Police Force.

The Puntland Maritime Police Force in particular has evolved into a well-trained and experienced counterterrorism unit. Founded with and mentored by private South African military contractors to address growing piracy, it has in the mountain regions. Indeed, it played a leading role in taking Qandala from Islamic State control in 2016. It also cooperated effectively with other forces to to attack Puntland from the sea.

The U.S. and UAE have supported the Puntland government’s campaign. In February 2025, the U.S. on Islamic State fighters, with , killing Omani-born Ahmed Maeleninine, a key recruiter, financier and facilitator. The United States claimed on March 25.

The UAE airstrikes too, likely from the large UAE-funded Puntland Maritime Police Force headquarters base in the major port city of Bosaso.

The Puntland government that through its latest operation it has advanced through 315 kilometers, clearing numerous villages and outposts in the mountains.

On Feb. 11, 2025, that regional security forces had killed more than 150 Islamic State members, mostly foreign fighters from countries including Morocco, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, illustrating the group’s significance as a global hub for the network. In fact, one analyst from a single encounter in early February, indicating a possibly higher death toll. In any case, it represents heavy losses for Islamic State in Somalia, though it is not defeated yet and still numbers fighters in the hundreds.

The risk of outside interference

All in all, Puntland has leveraged past success fighting jihadist groups in making remarkable progress in its fight against Islamic State in Somalia.

It shows how local and substate forces at fighting armed nonstate groups than the federal authorities, despite limited resources.

No doubt, support from the United States and UAE has aided Puntland’s anti-Islamic State push. But reliance on outside sources risks creating dependence on them when local forces must ultimately take ownership of the fight themselves.

And less patient foreign supporters have been known to spoil the elite units they build. This occurred with the Puntland Security Force, a U.S.-created special forces unit that during a brief from Somalia in 2021 and 2022.

There are also risks that partner forces will behave badly. While the Emirati mission in Puntland – as well as in and – has proven effective in fighting jihadists, in Sudan it has been arguably disastrous. There, the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces paramilitary unit helped to ignite an ongoing civil war in 2023 during which its .

Ultimately, it will be up to Puntlanders themselves to keep fighting. Indeed, foreign support would have little impact without effective local forces on the ground with the political will to sustain the campaign. Just as Puntland has done before, so too is it now demonstrating that it is determined to fight the threat posed by jihadist groups like Islamic State in Somalia.

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