Islamic State in Somalia
| Islamic State in Somalia | |
|---|---|
| Participant in the War in Somalia | |
The Black Standard of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
|
|
| Active | October 2015–present |
| Ideology |
Salafist Islamism Salafist Jihadism |
| Leaders |
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (self-proclaimed caliph of ISIL) Sheikh Abdul Qadir Mumin(leader of ISS) Mahad Maoallim(ISS senior commander) |
| Headquarters | Galaga mountains |
| Area of operations |
 Somalia
|
| Strength | 100–300 |
| Part of |
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
|
| Opponents | |
| Battles and wars | |
The Islamic State in Somalia (Abnaa ul-Calipha, short: ISS) is a Islamic State-affiliated group that is active in Somalia. The Islamic State in Somalia is led by Sheikh Abdul Qadir Mumin and primarily operates in the mountainous areas of Puntland, though has also claimed responsibility for several terrorist attacks throughout the rest of Somalia.
The origins of the Islamic State in Somalia trace back to 2012, when Abdul Qadir Mumin was sent by the al-Shabaab leadership to its remote outpost in Puntland, far from the terrorist group's primary areas of operation in southern Somalia. As cleric with little military experience, Mumin's role in Puntland was originally to attract recruits for the numerical small and militarily weak local al-Shabaab group, which was led by Mohamed Said Atom at the time. In course of the Galgala campaign in 2014, however, Atom defected to the government, and Mumin was forced to take control of the Puntland group. Isolated in the remote north and feeling incresingly distanced from al-Shabaab, Mumin began to consider himself more and more indepedent.
Meanwhile, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant had launched a propaganda campaign to convince al-Shabaab to join to them, which was "angrily refused" by al-Shabaab's central leadership; the Somali organization even began to hunt down and kill any dissidents that actually joined ISIL. Mumin, however, long dissatisfied with his situation, pledged bay'ah to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State in October 2015. This caused a violent split within Puntland's al-Shabaab, as only 20 of the 300 local Islamist fighters joined Mumin, while the al-Shabaab loyalists attempted to kill these defectors. The small group of Islamic State followers proceeded to form Abnaa ul-Calipha or the Islamic State in Somalia, and to evade their erstwhile comrades, while recruiting new members for their cause. It should be noted that al-Baghdadi and the ISIL leadership did not acknowledged Mumin's bay'ah, instead choosing to wait and see how the Islamic State in Somalia fared.
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Wikipedia