In the past few years, Somalis in the federal state of Puntland have been living under a ruthless terrorism campaign. The perpetrators periodically attacked soft targets, government facilities, assassinated societal elites, and business owners who were not forthcoming in paying extortion money.
While these kinds of terrorism acts are not unique to Puntland, the official narrative attributing these terrorist attacks solely to ISIS-Somalia. The claim that ISIS has established its central command in the mountainous region of Puntland is not new. But that claim did not gain any footing since the authenticity of the global ISIS phenomenon has been under great deal of scrutiny that almost put it out of business. Then came HTS led by Ahmed Al-Sharaa who was the second in command of the original ISIS to successfully liberate Syria and dominate the international headlines. ISIS is back, declared the British Spy Chief.
Restoration or Eradication
In recent weeks since Said Abdullahi Deni, President of Puntland declared an all-out war against Daesh in his federal state. Ever since many contradicting reports on foreign fighters have flooded the media and internet platforms.
In this interview on the BBC-Somali, Puntland’s minister of communication and dissemination of information said this about the ISIS foreign jihadists: I don’t think any other human beings could build the bunkers that they have built. Nobody expected they could build such robust underground bunkers with such strength. They dug tunnels under the caves. They divided the bunker into bedrooms, bathrooms equipped with shower, and laundry rooms. They stacked a year’s supply of food and medicine. They stored all sorts of communication systems and all kinds of arms, including sniper rifles and combat drones.
Taking what the minister said at a face value, I couldn’t help but wonder: Was the minister describing an ISIS hideaway and a command center of a jihadist group on their way to establish an Islamic state, or the luxury living spaces and operation room of some fortune soldiers engaged in illegal mining and other clandestine operations?
This ‘we are under siege’ battle cry and the hysteria enflamed by officials who urge civilians to arm themselves and boost their arsenal to ‘eradicate ISIS’ are paving the way for long lasting instability. Like the rest of Somalia, clans in Puntland are armed to the teeth. More dangerously, inter-clan trust is very thin and old accounts of vengeance are actively open, and every mountain that one points as an ISIS hideaway implicates one clan or another.
Ironically the tactics being applied in dealing with ISIS in Puntland is reminiscent of the federal-led ‘Macwisley campaign to eradicate al-Shabaab’ that ended up virtually eradicating the national commandoes and other elite forces trained by Turkiye and Eritrea.
Those military forces were deployed in remote villages to eradicate al-Shabaab, a tactic that ultimately exposed the former for several mysterious ambushes and massacres such as the one in Cowsweyne two years ago. Puntland has the most trained and battle-tested forces in Somalia. And that is likely to put those forces in the crosshairs.
Politicians seem to care less about the dangers that their rhetoric subjects to their forces and innocent civilians. They seem to care only about the counterterrorism funds that the current security vanity project brings and the optics of heroism that comes with it. Two years ago, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud set an exploitation model that Puntland President seem to be following. It is the infamous Operation Macwisley all over again. The only difference between the Puntland project to eradicate ISIS and the central government project to eradicate al-Shabaab is the funding source. The former is mainly funded by UAE and the latter was mainly funded by the U.S. under CVE (Countering Violent Extremism).
The Ever-illusive Geopolitics
The cards are being reshuffled for geopolitical balance of power. And that reality is compelling powerful countries with hegemonic ambitions and their cronies to make strategic moves to better position themselves for strategic advantage. And nowhere is that more obvious than in the Horn of Africa. More specifically, in Somalia.
It is no secret that some powerful nations strategically pursue their geopolitical objectives through proxies- client states, local militias, foreign mercenaries, and, of course, terrorist groups like ISIS. And wherever these useful tools are not readily available, they are fabricated willingly or unwittingly.
Follow The Narrative
The Caliphate was a New York Times podcast produced by Rukmini Callimachi that initially was awarded a Peabody Award.
The main character was a man named Abu Huzayfah Al-Kanadi who narrated gruesome accounts of executions and other operations that he carried for ISIS. The podcast cited two U.S. government officials whose identity were kept secret to have confirmed that Abu Huzayfah was once a member of ISIS in Syria. This set the stage for Islamophobic terrorism experts such as Sebastian Gorka who was then Trump’s advisor to launch a relentless campaign to amplify the fabricated ISIS threat. Gorka was regular on Fox News and other right-wing media sensationalizing the false narrative that ISIS is in the U.S. to establish a caliphate (Islamic state) through terror. He and others continued their false narrative long after the New York Times admitted that the gruesome stories such as the one that Abu Huzayfah claimed he “shot one man in the head and stabbed another in the heart before hanging the corpse on a cross” were nothing more than a terrorism fairy tale. It was made up by a Canadian man, Shehroze Chaudhry, who, though initially charged by the Canadian government, never served a single day in jail. Was Chaudhry a counterintelligence asset? Who knows.
Ghosts of The Mountains
In 2017, Sky News has produced a documentary on Puntland security. In that video, a man named Abbdulkadir Mumin was introduced as ISIS of Somalia commander. The video shows a red-bearded man and his roughly twelve men militia. We are told he is a British citizen who was hiding in the Galgala mountain. Sky News foreign correspondent, Alex Crawford, is shown embedded with the notorious U.S. trained, Diano family-owned private army, up to the mountain, supposedly in hot pursuit. Much of the narrative framed by the reporter do not match up with what the video shows. You would know this for sure if you watch the video hyperlinked above after muting it.
Yest said video has triggered a cascade of disinformation that crisscrossed across Somalia and around the world that ISIS’ center of gravity has shifted to Puntland. All were compelled to accept that without any scrutiny. As in Operation Macwisley, loyalty to the master narrative became mandatory patriotism.
Meanwhile, the export of Somalia blood gold is now more than $246 million. And the main destination being United Arab Emirates- Puntland’s number one foreign sponsor. Mining blood gold is even worse in Somaliland where UAE has been funding the construction of a military base for Israel. UAE has been serving as a geostrategic façade for Israel both in Yemen and Somalia. UAE and Israel have been operating a clandestine military base in the strategic Socotra. Also an airport and military base in Bosaso. The latter was converted from a commercial facility in a thriving city that became a ghost town in the past few years.
Conformity Pays
Ever since 9/11, one’s counterterrorism expertise merit is measured by one’s willingness to credulously drink the proverbial Kool-Aid. In the West and across the Middle East and Africa, the media and pundits have become relentless echo chambers that only amplify the official narrative.
Globally, as well as regionally, when it comes to understanding the causes and effects of terrorism, most have surrendered their common sense and capacity to think critically to their respective authorities. Frightened minds naturally lend their full trust to and seek protection from those who possess power and authorities, even when those have nothing more than a false sense of security to offer.
Riding on a geopolitical bandwagon for the past few years, many Somali politicians, security experts, intellectuals, media groups became the collective paint brush that painted the devil on the wall long enough till the devil finally arrived. Or so it seems. Scrutiny saves lives.