By the end of March 2025, the Trump administration already launched at least 16 air and drone strikes inside Somalia. In comparison, the Biden administration only launched 10 strikes in 2024.
The United States and the United Arab Emirates are conducting airstrikes in northern Somalia in support of Puntland’s military offensive against the local Islamic State branch. Tracking UAE’s strikes in particular, however, is difficult.
The Islamic State released images of 12 men who took part in its recent suicide assault in northern Somalia. All of them were foreign fighters, showing the growing internationalization of this Islamic State wing.
In a rare assault, the Islamic State Somalia (ISS) tried—and ultimately failed—to oust Puntland Security Forces (PSF) from a PSF base earlier today. Nonetheless, the attack represents how ISS is growing in strength and capacity.
The Islamic State documents at least 36 clashes between its men and Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s East African wing, between March and December 2023.
The U.S. government designated Abdiweli Mohamed Yusuf, the financial emir of the Islamic State’s Somali Province. This move, however, has much wider implications than just the Islamic State’s Somali operations.
U.S. Special Operations Forces killed Bilal al-Sudani, a key Islamic State operative responsible for coordinating the group’s finances and activities across central, eastern, and southern Africa (and beyond).
Terrorists haven’t launched major attacks in Somaliland in more than a decade. However, this does not mean it doesn’t face any real threats from Shabaab or the Islamic State.
Yesterday’s drone strike was the first US airstrike on the Islamic State in Somalia this year.
The month of May saw a relative spike in Islamic State claims inside Somalia compared to earlier months. However, this comes in the backdrop of several Puntland security operations against it.
AFRICOM has stepped up its targeting of the Islamic State, and continues to pursue its efforts to “degrade” al Qaeda’s branch in Somalia. Unfortunately, the defeat of the two terror groups is not in the cards.
The US military launched its second strike against the Islamic State’s network in northern Somalia in the past two weeks.
The video provides the first known instance of a Western foreign fighter within the Islamic State Somalia’s ranks.
With Shabaab continuing to target ISS members and pro-ISS members within its own ranks, it is unlikely Fiile will be the last commander to be killed by the al Qaeda branch.
The Islamic State’s loyalists claimed more operations in Somalia in 2018 than in 2016 and 2017 combined. The group has also expanded its operations to include tactics normally associated with its larger rival, Shabaab.