An Islamic State faction in Somalia has grown significantly over the past year, carrying out attacks in Puntland and receiving some funding from Syria and Iraq, a report by UN sanctions monitors said Friday.

The faction loyal to Sheikh Abdulqader Mumin was targeted by US drone strikes last week in the first US operation targeting IS in the Horn of Africa, US Africa Command said.

In the report, the UN monitoring group for Somalia said the IS faction, which was estimated in 2016 “to number not more than a few dozen, has grown significantly in strength” and may “consist of as many as 200 fighters.”

Phone records from Mumin showed he was in contact with an IS operative in Yemen who acts as an intermediary with senior IS leaders in Iraq and Syria “though the exact nature of this contact is unclear,” said the report.

Former members of the faction who defected in December said the Mumin group received orders as well as financing from Iraq and Syria, the report said.

The group captured the town of Qandala in Puntland’s Bari region in October 2016, declaring it the seat of the Islamic Caliphate in Somalia before being pushed out two months later by Puntland forces backed by US military advisers.

In February, IS gunmen stormed a hotel in Bosaso, the economic capital of Puntland, and in May the faction carried out its first suicide attack at a police checkpoint near Bosaso, killing five people.

“The group showed signs of increasing tactical capabilities during its first attack target a hotel,” said the UN monitors.

– Haven for foreign fighters –

The UN report raised concerns that the Bari region could become a potential haven for foreign IS fighters as the extremists are driven out of their strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

The IS group in Somalia “presents more natural appeal to foreign terrorist fighters than Al-Shabaab,” whose aim is to establish a state government by Islamic law, it added.

Al-Shabaab, another Islamist militant group, is affiliated with IS’s global rival Al-Qaeda.

The Bari region has attracted a limited number of foreign fighters including Sudanese national Abu Faris who is on the US terror list for recruiting foreign fighters for Al-Shabaab.

While the faction is expanding, its fighters appear to be poorly paid or not paid at all.

Unmarried fighters receive no salary, while married militants receive $50 per month plus $10-$20 per child, depending on the age.

The report estimated that the salary payments were between $3,000 and $9,000 per month, allowing IS leaders “to fund its insurgency on a limited budget”.

UN monitors said the faction will likely face frequent defections from poorly paid fighters, a problem that also affects Al-Shabaab.

WASHINGTON / PENTAGON / LONDON — A U.S. airstrike has targeted Islamic State in northern Somalia, defense officials told VOA Friday.

The strike resulted in at least one casualty, a U.S. defense official said, without elaborating on the target of the attack.

The chairman of the town of Qandala, Jama Mohamed Qurshe, told VOA Somali that several missiles hit a base for IS militants at Buqa village, 60 kilometers south of his town in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.

“According to the information we are getting from the ground, six missiles hit the militants’ base in the mountainous area. Local residents and pastorialists were shocked and fled from the area,” Qurshe said.

He said that prior to the strike, residents reporting hearing airplane sounds.

Details of the strike are still not clear due to the remoteness of the area, which locals said was only accessible to the militants; however, local officials and residents suspect the airstrike targeted the group’s senior leaders and perhaps even its top leader.

The pro-Islamic State faction in northeastern Somalia is led by Sheikh Abdulkadir Mumin, a former al-Shabab cleric who pledged his allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2015. In 2016, the U.S. State Department designated Mumin as a global terrorist.

Since the emergence of the IS faction in October 2015, the militants have claimed responsibility for at least four deadly attacks in Puntland.

In late October of last year, the militants briefly seized Qandala, before they were driven out by Puntland’s government.

No cutoff in funding

Meanwhile, the U.S. government has denied reports that it is planning to cut funding for the Somali government.

Somali media reports said the U.S. might reduce funding because unnamed Somali officials helped facilitate the October 14 truck bombing in Mogadishu that killed more than 350 people.

There were also reports that linked the alleged cut to an internal State Department finding that the department’s Africa Bureau is failing to ensure that U.S. funding is not diverted to al-Shabab militants.

In an email, a State Department official told VOA the reports were “incorrect.”

“Reports of funding being suspended to the Somali army due to alleged facilitation of the bombings by Somali officials are incorrect,” the official wrote. “The United States continues to provide extensive support to Somali security forces in their efforts to combat al-Shabab.”

On Wednesday, the Daily Nation, a leading newspaper in Kenya, quoted a report from the State Department’s Office of Inspector General. The report said the Africa Bureau had not established policy and procedures for identifying and mitigating terrorist financing risks for its programs in countries where militant organizations like al-Shabab and Boko Haram operate.

In his email, the State Department official said, “The United States prioritizes transparency and accountability in its partnership with Somalia, echoing one of the top priorities articulated by President Farmaajo upon his taking office earlier this year.”

“We have communicated conditions for U.S. security assistance to the federal government of Somalia, which includes enhanced measures to ensure proper oversight of our support,” he added.

Meanwhile, Somali leaders and the governors of Somali states are meeting for the fourth straight day in Mogadishu, in an effort to agree on implementation of a joint security plan.

The government is said to be preparing for a major offensive against al-Shabab.

BOSASO, Somalia (Reuters) – A protester was killed in the town of Bosaso in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region on Wednesday after demonstrations broke out in opposition to a concession deal for the management of its port, residents said.

The Dubai government-owned P&O Ports won a 30-year concession worth $336 million in April to expand and manage Bosaso’s port, a deal that involves dredging, building a quay and a 5-hectare back-up area.

On Wednesday, residents there said clashes erupted after police tried to disperse a crowd protesting what they said were price increases resulting from the agreement.

“We do not want P&O because P&O increased tax at the port and there is inflation now,” said Saiid Yusuf, a protester.

“And so we demonstrated. But police opened fire and one of the demonstrators died. After that, we ran away.”

The Puntland ports minister, Saiid Mohamed Rage, denied that taxes had been raised but confirmed that one of the demonstrators died in the clashes.
“A few people who are against peace and the port’s development organised a demonstration. Unfortunately one person died,” he told Reuters.

Previously, Puntland signed a contract with Divers Marine Contracting L.L.C, of United Arab Emirates, tasking it with upgrading the port’s capacity, but the deal was cancelled with the government saying the firm had failed to meet its obligations.

Somalia has been mired in conflict since 1991. But Puntland, in the far north of the Horn of Africa country, has been largely peaceful apart from a dispute with the neighbouring semi-autonomous region of Galmudug that has triggered some violence.