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NDTV
2 days ago
- Politics
- NDTV
"Reactivating Sleeper Cells, Distributing Weapons": How ISIS Is Reemerging In Iraq, Syria
Bagdad: The Islamic State (IS) is reportedly trying to exploit the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime to stage a comeback in Syria and neighbouring Iraq. The terror group has started reactivating fighters in Syria and Iraq, with security operatives in both countries, who have been monitoring IS for years, foiling at least a dozen major plots this year, according to a report by Reuters. The United Nations estimates IS, also known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) or Daesh, has 1,500 to 3,000 fighters in the two countries. But, its most active branches are in Africa, according to Search International Terrorist Entities (SITE) data. The US military believes the group's secretive leader is Abdulqadir Mumin, who heads the Somalia branch, according to an earlier report. Assad's Fall Triggered ISIS Moments Middle East leaders and their Western allies have feared that the fall of Assad may result in the Islamic State's rise in the region, where the extremist group once imposed a reign of terror over millions. Quoting sources, Reuters reported that IS is attempting to do just that by activating sleeper cells, surveilling potential targets and distributing guns, silencers and explosives, and stepping up recruitment and propaganda efforts. However, the terror group has not achieved any major success so far due to vigilant security operatives working in the area. Operations in Iraq The group's first strike in the region came in December last year, the same month Syria's Bashar Assad was toppled. As rebels were advancing on Damascus, IS commanders gathered near Raqqa -- the former capital of their self-declared caliphate-- and sent two envoys to Iraq with verbal instructions to the group's followers to launch attacks, sources said. The terrorists were not successful in their effort as they were reportedly captured at a checkpoint while travelling in northern Iraq on December 2. The captured envoys warned Iraqi security forces about a potential suicide bomber attack. Eleven days later, Iraqi forces tracked a suspected IS suicide bomber to a crowded restaurant in the northern town of Daquq using his cell phone. The man was shot dead before he could detonate an explosives belt, the report said. The foiled attack confirmed Iraq's suspicions about the group, according to Colonel Abdul Ameer al-Bayati of the Iraqi Army's 8th Division, which is deployed in the area. "Islamic State elements have begun to reactivate after years of lying low, emboldened by the chaos in Syria," he said. In Iraq, aerial surveillance and intelligence sources on the ground have reportedly picked up increased IS activity in the northern Hamrin Mountains, a longtime refuge, and along key roads, Ali al-Saidi. Iraqi officials believe IS seized large stockpiles of weapons left behind by Assad's forces and worry some could be smuggled into Iraq. Iraq's Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said Baghdad was in contact with Damascus about IS, which he told Reuters in January was growing and spreading into more areas. "We hope that Syria, in the first place, will be stable, and Syria will not be a place for terrorists," he said, "especially ISIS terrorists." Operations In Syria In Syria, sources believe that IS has also moved fighters from the desert area, a focus of coalition airstrikes, to cities including Aleppo, Homs and Damascus. "Of the challenges we face, Daesh is at the top of the list," Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab told state-owned Ekhbariya TV last week. Syria's Defence Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra told Reuters in January that the country was developing its intelligence-gathering efforts, and its security services would address any threat. Has ISIS Weakened? Despite the recent activities in the Middle East, there has been a drop in the number of attacks claimed by IS since Assad's fall. IS claimed responsibility for 38 attacks in Syria in the first five months of 2025, putting it on track for a little over 90 claims this year, according to data from SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors terrorists' activities online. That would be around a third of last year's claims, the data shows. In Iraq, where IS originated, the group claimed four attacks in the first five months of 2025, versus 61 total last year. At its peak between 2014 and 2017, IS held sway over roughly a third of Syria and Iraq, where it imposed its extreme interpretation of Islamic sharia law, gaining a reputation for shocking brutality. US and Iraqi sources believe that IS remnants in Syria and Iraq have been dramatically weakened, unable to control territory since a US-led coalition and its local partners drove them from their last stronghold in 2019. The coalition and partners hammered terrorist hideouts with airstrikes and raids after Assad's fall. Such operations captured or killed "terrorist elements," while preventing them from regrouping and carrying out operations, according to Iraqi spokesperson Sabah al-Numan. Iraq's intelligence operations have also become more precise, through drones and other technology, he added. Still, SITE's director, Rita Katz, cautioned against seeing the drop in IS attacks in Syria as a sign of weakness. "Far more likely that it has entered a restrategising phase," she said.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How the small autonomous region of Puntland found success in battling Islamic State in Somalia
On Feb. 24, 2025, members of the Puntland Defense Forces posed next to a sign 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 Operation Hilaac, 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 central Somali government's confrontation 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 self-declared autonomous region of Puntland have, with some key support from international partners, united to repel the Islamic State group's advance. Islamist groups 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. Al-Shabab and later the Islamic State in Somalia are the most extreme manifestations of this trend. Islamic State in Somalia emerged in 2015 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 global entity intent on expanding territory – 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 hub for transferring funds and drawing recruits from across Africa and elsewhere via the regional coordination office it operates known as al-Karrar. One notable Sudan-born operative killed in a 2023 U.S. raid in Puntland, Bilal al-Sudani, was known as a key foreign fighter, facilitator and financier who developed Islamic State funding networks in South Africa and helped fund the group's branch in Afghanistan. An NBC News report 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 suggested he holds a top role close to caliph. In any case, Islamic State in Somalia's ranks have increased steadily, from an estimated 200-300 fighters in 2016 to about 1,000 as of February 2025, according to reports. Puntland declared itself an autonomous region of Somalia in 1998 amid the ongoing Somali civil war and has since achieved relative stability 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 in a country that often hinges on clan loyalties, 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 United Arab Emirates money and mentored by private South African military contractors to address growing piracy, it has turned to fighting al-Shabab and Islamic State in Somalia 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 defeat a 2016 al-Shabab attempt to attack Puntland from the sea. The U.S. and UAE have supported the Puntland government's campaign. In February 2025, the U.S. launched two airstrikes on Islamic State fighters, with one on Feb. 1, 2025, killing Omani-born Ahmed Maeleninine, a key recruiter, financier and facilitator. The United States claimed another airstrike on March 25. The UAE has conducted airstrikes too, likely from the large UAE-funded Puntland Maritime Police Force headquarters base in the major port city of Bosaso. The Puntland government has claimed that through its latest operation it has advanced through 315 kilometers, clearing numerous villages and outposts in the mountains. On Feb. 11, 2025, The Washington Post reported 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 counted 118 dead fighters 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. 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 can be more effective 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 splintered during a brief withdrawal of U.S. forces 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 Afghanistan and Yemen – 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 members perpetrated alleged atrocities. 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. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Ido Levy, American University Read more: Somalia and Turkey are becoming firm allies – what's behind this strategy Despite one of the US military's greatest fiascoes, American troops are still in Somalia fighting an endless war Ethiopia's deal with Somaliland upends regional dynamics, risking strife across the Horn of Africa Ido Levy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
