The man believed to be the new leader of ISIS runs a global network of fighters from a Somalian mountain range after years of preaching extremism in British mosques.

Abdul Qadir Mumin, the latest supreme commander of the Islamic State known for his beguiling charisma and powerful ability to recruit, is on the run from forces in Somalia trying to hunt him down. 

When ISIS lost its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq in 2009, the erosion of territory did not mean that the organisation simply died out.

Far from disappearing, new branches sprouted from the wreckage in other parts of the world, especially in Africa where jihadists have been able to capitalise on political instability and fragile governance.

From the remote Cal Miskaad mountains in Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in northeast Somalia, Mumin sought to revive the caliphate from the ruins.

Nestled deep in the secluded refuge in the arid Bari region, Mumin expanded his forces from 30 to approximately 1,200 fighters by the end of 2024, and elevated the fledgling branch to operational preeminence within the global ISIS network.

As the organisation’s financial centre, ISIS Somalia is understood to have funded a number of global terror attacks, such as the two suicide bombings outside the Kabul airport in 2021, killing 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops.

But before Mumin began rebuilding ISIS, he worked in British mosques for a decade, where security sources said he was part of a powerful ‘recruiting network’ that was enlisting dozens of young Britons to travel to Somalia.

Born in Puntland in the early 1950s, the elusive jihadi mastermind is physically distinctive, known for his striking red-dyed beard and pearl-white teeth.

He spent much of his adult life in Somalia before leaving the country in the 1990s amid the upheaval of civil war. 

He settled in Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden, with his wife and young child, but was allegedly forced to move around the year 2000 after allegedly telling an undercover journalist that he would genitally mutilate his own daughter. 

Mumin then headed for England, where he became a preacher at the Quba Mosque in Leicester, but soon courted controversy because of his extremist interpretation of scripture. 

Following complaints, he moved to London and became a visiting speaker at Greenwich Mosque where he crossed paths with two of Britain’s most infamous terrorists.

One was Mohammed Emwazi aka ‘Jihadi John’, one of the notorious ISIS Beatles who oversaw the brutal executions of kidnapped western journalists and aid workers in Iraq and Syria in 2014 and 2015.

The other was Michael Adebolajo, who murdered Fusilier Lee Rigby with a meat cleaver near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich in 2013.

The convicted criminals were known to have attended Greenwich Mosque and both  later made failed attempts to join extremist groups in Somalia. 

Fifteen years ago, several in the western intelligence community believed they had seen the last of Mumin when, under investigation by MI5, he fled from Britain back home to Somalia. 

In April, General Michael Langley, then head of U.S. Africa Command, announced to congress that ‘ISIS controls their global network from Somalia’ and American officials have described Mumin as the group’s new chief.

When intelligence indicated that Mumin was plotting to seize the port city of Bosaso in the northeastern corner of Somalia, both Puntland forces and U.S. officials began the fight against him.

After almost a year of intense conflict supported by American airstrikes, Mumin’s forces have been heavily weakened but the ISIS leader is still on the run.

On November 25, some 200 American special forces troops launched a raid in coordination with Puntland counter-terrorism units, targetting his stronghold in the Balade valley.

U.S. troops boarded MH-60 helicopters while MQ-9 Reaper drones executed precision strikes on the compound believed to house militants, in the Habarbakuuje and Mareero areas of the valley.  

Initial assessments indicate that a senior ISIS commander and between 10 and 15 militants from Syria, Turkey and Ethiopia were killed in the attack.

Joint forces also destroyed a weapons cache and equipment used in ISIS-run gold-mining operations, a key financial lifeline for the group in Puntland, local media reported.

But Puntland intelligence estimates that there are about 200 remaining fighters in Cal Miskaad, including Mumin himself who has been forced to live a nomadic existence away from the main force, limping from cave to cave.

‘We will continue our holy war until we taste death like our brother Osama,’ Mumin said after Osama Bin Laden’s death in 2011 by U.S. Navy SEALs in Abbottabad. ‘Or until we are victorious and rule the entire world,’ the ISIS chief added.

Like Bin Laden, who escaped American forces through the subterranean passages of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan in 2001, Mumin uses the environment to his advantage, exploiting nature as his shield from authorities.

‘The day we kill Mumin will be the happiest day of my life,’ Captain Omar Yusuf Mohamed, an officer in the Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF), told the Times.

Mohamed, 40, has been fighting an international group of militants in a year-long brutal war to destroy the terror group.

‘He’s like a virus that has come here and infected our land with his ideology of hatred, and brought death and suffering to our people,’ Mohamed said.

Mumin is unusual for not having claimed lineage from the prophet Mohammed, which is a prerequisite for Islamic State caliphs.

His ascent to the global leader of the Islamic State is a testament to his bewitching personality and extensive experience in the world of extremism and recruitment.

Back in Britain, he allegedly tried to enlist at mafrishes, community cafés where young men would gather and chew khat, a narcotic substance popular among Somalis and Ethiopians.

Security services caught up with Mumin’s suspicious activities, who he accused of harassment.

He fled the UK in 2010 and returned home to Somalia, where on arrival he immediately pledged allegiance to al-Shabaab, a jihadi movement allied to al-Qaeda.

In October 2015, he defected to ISIS via an audio recording published online in which he declared his loyalty to the budding caliphate. 

He claimed to command ‘the mujahideen of Somalia’, when in reality only around two dozen al-Shabaab militants defected alongside him. 

At the time, few officials were concerned that the force would pose a serious threat because of its modest size, but over time it became clear that the new outfit was dangerous.

Now, Mumin’s militants are hiding in a fortified network of caves in the valley of Baalade, but Puntland forces are confident they won’t be able to hold out for long.

The leader is forced to travel in disguise or in the dead of night, and communicates with his advisers only by written message to avoid being intercepted.

‘They are surrounded. They have nowhere to run. They have no supplies left and are living off birds, plants, weeds. Even donkey meat,’ Captain Mohamed told the Times.

‘They don’t bother to collect their dead. The valley is littered with bones. All war is cruel, but this has been on another level.’

Despite his confidence, Mumin’s forces are equipped with advanced weaponry from abroad.

During a skirmish in January, the Puntlanders were targetted by a squadron of drones – a technology they themselves lacked at that stage — that destroyed six of their vehicles. 

They have also been targetted with sniper fire, RPGs, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, all of which are believed to have been smuggled across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen. 

In February, Puntland’s forces seized villages and an important ISIS base in the Miskaad mountains, where at least two thousand missiles were captured.

Colonel Abdiaziz Sankusocod, 47, an explosives expert who was almost killed by an IED in March, told the Times: ‘These are experienced engineers from the Middle East who built these missiles. They know what they are doing.’

The strategic villages of Dhaadaar and Dhasaan in the Togga Jecel valley were liberated from the Islamic State by Puntland forces during a mission in February.

However, by the time the Puntlanders approached the strongholds, ISIS militants had already fled deeper into the mountains, abandoning the territory.

Now, all that remains of their presence in the caves behind the villages is propaganda graffiti, discarded boxes of chocolate biscuits, caffeine-infused chewing gum and large numbers of blank pill packages. 

According to the Puntlanders, the unmarked boxes contain stimulant drugs used by militants during battle for stamina and bravery. 

In other makeshift societies built in mountain hollows, forces discovered a community that clearly functioned as a hospital, with advanced technology including X-ray machines and CT scanners.

In other bases, they discovered sewing machines and the soles of half-made shoes. 

Several militants chose to join Mumin’s developing group alongside their wives and children.

Estimates suggest that on top of the original fighting force of 1,200 men, there was another 800 women and children. It is believed that only 80 remain after almost a year of conflict. 

Ahmed Gallow, a senior intelligence officer with Puntland Intelligence Security Agency, told the Times: ‘We’ve found packs of Pampers [nappies], we’ve even found Louis Vuitton handbags.’

Senior leaders like Mumin are believed to have resided in caves with separate areas for sleeping, cooking and prayer, indicating that the fighters had plans to inhabit the landscape long-term.

Intelligence indicates that terrorists from more than 30 nations travelled to Somalia to join Mumin, with militants arriving from Tanzania, Morocco, Yemen, Canada, Argentina and Germany. 

According to the Puntanders who work at the headquarters in Bosaso, nearly every continent is represented by the seized passports of the fighters.

Among them are Islamic State refugees, who fled the Levant in 2019 looking for a safe haven following the collapse of the so-called caliphate.

Others are simply opportunists who bought the lie that they would be given a wife and paid a salary of $2,000 in Somalia. 

The new recruits are put through a training programme of six months.

In 2014, the organisation published a propaganda video showing masked recruits going through military induction at a training facility near Shebaab, the village that functioned as their capital.

In footage from 2016, Mumin can be seen standing before enlistees with a Kalashnikov over his shoulder, about to deliver a speech in which he bestowed his blessings upon them and their struggle.

Puntland has a history of fighting jihadist groups, dating back more than three decades when the city of Bosaso was captured by Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya militants in 1992. 

But the threat posed by the growing Islamic State group is more acute due to its international profile, enabling it to source recruits and weaponry from around the globe.