American military forces successfully captured multiple members of ISIS-Somalia on Friday in a ground raid in Somalia’s Puntland state.
U.S. Africa Command announced on Saturday that it carried out an operation against ISIS-Somalia on July 25. The release did not include details on the nature of the operation or if any ISIS members were killed or captured; saying that “[s]pecific details about units and assets will not be released to ensure continued operations security.”
“AFRICOM, alongside the Federal Government of Somalia and Somali Armed Forces, continues to take action to degrade ISIS-Somalia’s ability to plan and conduct attacks that threaten the U.S. homeland, our forces, and our citizens abroad,” AFRICOM’s release said.
However, the Puntland Defense Force, the main counter-terrorism body for the state, posted on X that their U.S. partners successfully captured ISIS-Somalia’s finance chief Abdiweli Mohamed Yusuf, along with two others. Additionally an AFRICOM spokesperson said in a statement to Task & Purpose that AFRICOM is “currently assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information on ISIS-Somalia individuals captured as appropriate.”
Yusuf, also known as Abdiweli Walalac, has served as the chief financial leader for the terrorist group in Somalia since at least 2019. In June 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury listed him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist and imposed sanctions on him. In that same announcement naming Yusuf as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, the Treasury Department noted that ISIS-Somalia generated millions in funds, mainly through extortion of local businesses, which it then used to finance its operations. Yusuf, as the chief money man for the group, answered directly to the leaders of ISIS-Somalia and ISIS al-Karrar, a subgroup that oversees several ISIS cells throughout the African continent.
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Puntland, on the northeasternmost part of Somalia, is geographically the closest part of the country to the Middle East and has been home to ISIS-Somalia for several years.
The raid in Puntland happened the same day that U.S. forces killed Dhiya’ Zawba Muslih al-Hardani, a senior leader of ISIS in Syria.
The U.S. military has long had a presence in Somalia during the Global War on Terror. In recent years it has focused on targeting ISIS and al-Shabab militants, in support of the federal government of Somalia’s fight against them. After scaling back the number of airstrikes during the Biden administration, the U.S. has significantly ramped up operations against militants in Somalia this year. That included several major airstrikes, including ones carried out by the fighter jets on the USS Harry S. Truman while it was operating in the Red Sea.
