How Puntland Prolonged a Fight Against ISIS for Profit and Power
The miner’s answer was swift when asked what ISIS Somalia was really doing in the mountains. “They were not building a movement,” he said. “They were taking minerals and collecting money.”
His simple statement shatters the official narrative Puntland’s leadership promoted for over a year: that its campaign against ISIS was a decisive regional victory. Officials touted the operation as a model of Somali security, a story often echoed by international observers who framed Puntland as a rare bastion of stability.
However, a deeper investigation reveals a different truth, one shaped less by counterterrorism than by cold economic calculus and political ambition.
- A Small Insurgency That Refused to Die
ISIS in Somalia was never the potent national threat officials described. It was a modest network of some 1,500 fighters, scattered across remote mountains and rural areas. However, defeating them took more than a year.
Their resilience poses an unsettling question: How did such a small force survive for so long?
The answer lies not in ideology, but in resources. The group embedded itself near active mineral extraction sites, rural taxation routes, and small trade networks, positioning itself squarely where money was already flowing.
As one elder summarised, “They stayed because the minerals were there. Nothing else.”
- Minerals Crept Through Bossaso
A whistleblower with access to the port of Bossaso described consistent, though small-scale, shipments of minerals leaving from territories where ISIS in Somalia operated.
“The loads were not large,” the source said. “A few sacks at a time. However, enough to matter. Moreover, they moved because the right people were connected.”
Analysis points to influential intermediaries who operated between insurgent areas and coastal markets, some of whom had links to political figures in Puntland (International Crisis Group, 2024). This overlap between insurgent revenue, business interests, and political networks suggests the conflict was far more entangled and economically motivated than the public was led to believe.
- A Shadow System Built for Extraction, Not Governance
ISIS Somalia did establish structures in the areas it controlled, but these were not institutions of governance. They were instruments of revenue. The group set up temporary courts to settle mining disputes, micro-taxation points on rural roads, and checkpoints to monitor traders, all designed to control money rather than provide services.
“They cared about money, not people,” said one resident.
- Politics and the Perfect Enemy
The timing of the conflict’s escalation was politically convenient. Security operations intensified as Puntland’s President, Said Deni, was campaigning for a greater role on the national stage.
A senior Puntland official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the dual utility of the fight. “The operations were real,” the official said, “but they also helped control the mineral network and shape the political story. It was never just about ISIS.”
- A Misleading Comparison to a National Threat
Puntland’s effort to frame its campaign as a national security model falls apart under scrutiny. The regional government fought a small, resource-focused network. Meanwhile, the Federal Government of Somalia has been confronting Al Shabaab, a mature national organisation with extensive administrative capacity, including taxation departments, courts, and internal security structures.
Under President Dr Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, federal authorities have undertaken the structurally significant work of dismantling Al Shabaab’s taxation system in Mogadishu, seizing assets, blocking financial routes, and prosecuting collaborators. These are substantive victories that have received less fanfare than Puntland’s limited campaign.
- A Victory of Narrative, Not Fact
Evidence from community interviews, whistleblower accounts, and international monitoring reveals a consistent pattern:
• Puntland fought a small insurgency sustained by mineral revenue.
• The conflict lasted over 1 year despite the group’s limited size.
• Mineral exports flowed through the port of Bossaso.
• Economic and political actors were deeply intertwined with the conflict’s dynamics.
• The war’s visibility peaked during President Deni’s national political campaign.
For these reasons, the idea that Puntland’s campaign offers a replicable model for Somali security is a dangerous oversimplification. The war in the mountains was not the heroic counterterrorism operation it seemed to be. It was a mineral war.
