Africa Eye: Somali soldiers fighting IS

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1:02They grow here. Not culture or business. Culture and business. Puerto Rico. It's not what's next. It's where. Visit investpr.org forward slash business. Hello there and welcome. I'm Ankechi Obunna in Nairobi with Focus on Africa. BBC Africa I goes into the mountains of Somalia with the soldiers fighting members of the Islamic State Group, IS. What's it like for the soldiers at the front lines? No matter what every text, wherever they hide, we will continue. Even if it takes 10 years, we won't stop until the last fighter is captured. Our goal is to remove them from these areas completely, whether it takes 10 or 15 years. We will go wherever they move or hide. Only when the land is fully cleared will we rest. Until then, we will continue. Also, the number of Egyptians attempting to reach Europe illegally

2:07is rising sharply. We hear from families who say smogless at demanding thousands of dollars to make the journey. When he arrived at Libya, the smuggler contacted us and demanded payment. He said that if we didn't pay, he wouldn't be allowed to immigrate. And if he returned, he would die and be thrown into the sea. So returning was no longer an option. The only solution was to pay. It's Monday, March 16th. First we go to Somalia, where local soldiers in Puntland are fighting every day to push the Islamic State Group, also known as IS, out of their region. Nearly a decade after its defeat in the Middle East, the so-called Islamic State Group has

3:12shifted its focus to Africa. The Islamic State Group has had branches emerging across the continent. This group has continuously disturbed peace in different countries, with the Islamic State's West Africa Province also known as IS, based around the Lake Chad that has established strongholds in northeastern Nigeria and parts of Niger. There is also the Islamic State in the Great Sahara, which is operating across the Sahel, with the presence in Mali and Burkina Faso. The group is also active in the Democratic Republic of Congo and northern Mozambique, specifically the Cabo del Gado Province. But now Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland has become one of the group's main strategic hubs. Last year, the UN estimated that IS had up to 800 fighters in Somalia, over half of them, for in fighters. Baby's is Africa's air reporter, Sahanun Ahmed, embedded with the Puntland Defense Forces in Somalia's al-Misqaad mountains,

4:16while they fight against IS. And we started the conversation with him telling me about his experience. In November last year, I traveled to Somalia's al-Misqaad mountain range. We embedded with a unit from the army of Somalia's semi-autonomous of Puntland. They are called the Puntland Defense Forces. This force has been fighting against the Islamic State Group for more than a year. After being defeated IS in the Middle East, they shifted its focus to Africa, and they have established Somalia, one of its most strategic hubs. If you remember, it took global coalition to defeat IS in the Middle East, and now it is local soldiers with very limited resources fighting against this group. And the condition of the mountains in Somalia, it is very irid, barren, and inhospitable. So is that kind of an environment that you are fighting against one of the most feared groups in the world? How big of a threat is IS in Somalia? On a local level, IS ability to

5:22stage or carry out attacks has been created, and it's not a significant threat to either Puntland or Somalia today. And this is what most of the soldiers command us and the authorities, the local authorities believe, and also the experts outside Somalia. However, IS Somalia is still a place critical role in terms of providing resources, support, and facilitation for the Islamic State branch across the globe, both in Africa, branch in Africa, and the others in the Middle East, and Asia, such as in Afghanistan. On April 2025, the then commander of the United States Africa Command, Africa General Michael Langley, he said in front of the Congress that IS controlled their global network from Somalia. So basically, IS has a very strong hold in Somalia, and not just that it's controlling a huge part of its network, because in other parts of the world

6:23in the Middle East, in Asia, and in other places, that's correct. That's the case in Somalia. IS have very few soldiers. The United States said IS have up to 800 soldiers in Somalia, and it's not significant number when you compare to what they have in West Africa, for instance. So they are sort of training half. It's where they illustrate their attacks across the globe. So what are the conditions for the Somali army soldiers, especially those who are at the front line? The army based within the mountains, constantly move based on the development that army make on the front line. So the resources are very limited, there is no running water or electricity, they sleep in makeshift tents, made of branches and topolines and rocks. So this kind of situation is even more challenging for the female soldiers. In the camp I met Mona Ali Dahir, a two-year-old officer and a mother of eight who haven't seen her children for more than 12

7:27months. She is one of the few women serving in this fight, so it's interesting how committed she is to this war against IS and how strongly she believes in her duty to defend her country. Here she is talking about that issue. We have seen a father in son, two brothers, three brothers die in the same place. All those who died, died with honor. There is no more unnerable way to die. When you're fighting someone who invaded your country and attacked your face, what is the welfare of other local soldiers like? So these soldiers are Somali soldiers but under the control of Punta and the state of Somalia, which is one of the federal state members, Somalis federal state members. So they are getting support from the government, especially the local government, but it is not that big because what the Somali government can get for its soldiers is very limited.

8:28We really get the rights that they have, they do not constantly get their salary, they do not have enough ammunition and weapons and what they rely on mostly is the aid, the military aid that Somalia gets from other countries, it's allies. What is the impact of ISIS on the wider region? Given that the country also had a challenge dealing with another militant group called Al-Shabab. The group had influence in Barry region of Somalia, which is one of the regions of Punta state. They also had influence of a key port city called Bossaso. You especially reported that in 2002, ISIS Somalia raised $2 million US dollars from extortion payments from local businesses. So that was the kind of influence they had in the region, especially in Somalia, although it's worth mentioning that they do not have significant influence in the southern regions of Somalia, Al-Shabab are more stronger there. However, Punta forces they managed to push ISIS Somalia out of

9:30that key port city, Bossaso, at the start of 2025. I met he did a soldier who has been in the Punta land army for more than 15 years and he is currently on the front line. He also fought against Al-Shabab, which is another Islamic militant group in Somalia. He spoke about the difference between the two groups and how brutal ISIS is towards the civilian and towards the government soldiers as well, and this based on his view and experience on the front line. They were Somalia men who didn't harm civilians. They used to fight the armies, but these ones don't spare civilians or government, but these people they dig holes or use drones with explosives attached or put in land mines. They don't want to die on the battlefield. They go back to their holes. We are going to the mountains to kill those in the holes. Can you tell us what exactly is motivating these soldiers to keep fighting? I have asked a discussion to almost every soldier that I met in the calm. What most of

10:35them tell you is that they feel ownership and that they are fighting for their land. That's the main thing. There is also another factor that I noticed motivating the local army. There is a sense of foreign enemy invading their country. That makes them feel genuine threat. So also I met a young soldier in the camp who captured an ISIS fighter alive. The soldier was just 16 when ISIS emerged in the Middle East and had never watched or followed the news at the time, so now he is 24 and he recently joined the army. He's called Abdukhir and this is what he told me. No matter whatever it takes, wherever they hide, we will continue. Even if it takes 10 years, we won't stop until the last fighter is captured. Our goal is to remove them from these areas completely, whether it takes 10 or 15 years. We will go wherever they move or hide. Only when the land is fully cleared will we rest. Until then, we will continue. And what is the current state of security in Somalia,

11:42in difference from when you were there last? So to answer this question, I will need to take you back to 1991 a little bit. When the state of Somalia collapsed, Somalia entered that time as civil war and has been, that civil war has been going on for more than a decade. Then by 2006, other groups like Al Shobab and the Islamic courts of Somalia emerged which was in the situation of the country. The instability that all those factors caused has allowed other dangerous players to emerge, such as ISIS, which was established in 2015 by 17 men, Somali men, and their leader Abdukhir the moment who was once living in Sweden and then moved to UK and he was once a British citizen. The fight is still going on, although the group's capabilities have been degraded significantly and they are now hiding in caves. Some of the soldiers told me that they are

12:43running out of resources such as ammunition, weapons, and also medicine. So the analysis that I'm getting from underground is they cannot keep up fighting for so long they will either surround or will be eliminated in decades. BBC is Africa, I Sahannun Ahmed there. You can watch the Africa I documentary Shadow War on the BBC News Africa YouTube channel. This is Focus on Africa from the BBC World Service. Let's turn to Egypt now. Where some families are living in fear for the lives of relatives who left home instead of better opportunities in Europe. Many say smugglers have been demanding as much as $4,000 to secure places on migrants boats and some families claim their loved ones have received death threats if payments were not made. For many, the uncertainty is devastating.

13:50Some relatives remain missing while others are feared to have died. Why attempting the dangerous Mediterranean crossing? There are also growing concerns about the increasing number of unaccompanied miners making this period's journeys. When he arrived at Libya, the smuggler contacted us and demanded payment. He said that if we didn't pay he wouldn't be allowed to immigrate and if he returned he would die and be thrown into the sea. So returning was no longer an option. The only solution was to pay. We want to know if the missing are still alive and if they are alive, where are they? We are lost now. There were 34 people on the smuggling boat, some of them died and 16 are missing, including five from our village. All we want to know is where

14:50they are. This issue has been prevalent for five to six years and has spread significantly. Currently, half of the young in the village are considering this immigrating and some are dropping out of university, high school or middle school skipping exams and contemplating irregular immigration. The number of Egyptians migrating illegally to Europe has been rising sharply. Figures from the European border agency Frontex show that Egypt's nationals rank among the top largest group from Africa entering the European Union. Illegal migration continues to pose a major challenge with thousands of Africans dying or going missing each year while searching for a better life. I began by asking Amy Noel and Biozo, a senior migration researcher from the Institute for Security Studies, what is driving this increase in irregular migration?

15:52When it comes to the drivers, I think the drivers have definitely shifted in the last decade and particularly in the last five years. Since COVID and since the Ukraine-Russia war, Egypt of course is dealing with hyperinflation. There's been fuel shortages and grain shortages due to supply coming largely from the Ukraine and Russia. The tourism industry which is massive and Egypt has also been really hurt from the Ukraine-Russia war because a lot of the big proportion of the tourists that were coming in were from those countries. There's been of course the currency devaluation that is lending into sort of increased unemployment and increased poverty and overall disuse frustration. For some of the people that are going, if you do make it through all of these barriers, then you're able to earn euro and even a really inexpensive or low-paid euro job allows them to send money home and help people there and live a quality of life and income that they couldn't have at home. Now Amy, I've seen a few videos on social media of people talking

16:54about going to euro from coastal west Africa through illegal migrants routes. Now talk me through the role social media networks play in shaping migrants decisions and also probably connecting them with some of this smugglers and network that help people cross to Europe illegally. Yeah, I mean by all accounts it's a massive role. It's sort of one of the lead connection points. Smugglers are increasingly professionalized over the last decade and they're extremely active on social media and like most criminal actors they tend to say at least step ahead of any law or enforcement and they're sort of using advanced psychological tactics to really trick people. I saw a story recently that was saying that they're using emojis to avoid detection because some of the larger platforms are now filtering for different keywords and trying to crack down on it. There's lots of activity on TikTok, lots of activity on meta. People are live streaming

17:55or departures and arrivals. Some of it is likely to be staged. On telegram you have more reports to sort of up to the minute prices and up to the minute route changes and people saying don't go here. There's a detection there. So it's extremely active platform I would say and there's lots of lies at the end about how much money people are getting. They are getting free money for governments that they get free accommodation and free travel across Europe which of course I'm true. Now what are some of the most pertinent migration routes that you have seen and what makes them easy or difficult to monitor when it comes to data gathering? In actual numbers they're regional routes, they're on the continent, they're seasonal, they're regular and they're generally positive. But if we're talking about irregular routes into Europe you know there's only a limited number of entry points particularly from Africa and when we're talking about irregular arrivals from all the five routes across the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic they have any link whatsoever

18:58to Africa we're talking about 130,000 entries in a year so we're not talking massive numbers. And Africa has always made up a minority of these numbers. People will focus restrictions on one of those routes or one port of entry and you end up playing a bit of a game of whack-a-mole where another one opens up. One of the other reasons you saw a lot of Egyptians is that there was an opportunity and people found the opportunity to get into Crete on Greece and then also a spike in arrivals in the Beliaric Islands and that's compared to the West Atlantic route which is the Canary Islands which spiked in 2023 and once that route spiked the EU formed a deal of Mauritania for 200 million euros to really stop and stem migration out of Mauritania and so no numbers to that to the Canary Islands have dropped by 60% but now you have hundreds of thousands of people who are stuck in Mauritania and it's shifted people upwards through Algeria into the route into the Beliaric Islands which has gone up 75% and where you're finding quite a few West African arrivals.

20:04Right now let's talk a bit about smuggling and extortion. We have heard and seen reports of some of these irregular migrants who are being extorted by smugglers and in some cases their families back home have been threatened in terms of kidnapping and holding them whole state. Now how significant is this practice on the migration routes from Africa to Europe especially those going through the Mediterranean Sea? Yeah it's really hard to quantify it but I would say you know it's extremely prevalent you know globally the smuggling industry generates seven billion US dollars per year so it's a huge business it has absolutely professionalized over the last decade so it's become much bigger much more sophisticated the risks around extortion around being sold into slavery around sexual violence physical violence arbitrary detention all of these factors is very prevalent they

21:07have been prevalent for quite a while who is doing it and how much you know sort of they're extorting for the the general going amounts and the patterns tends to shift but the stories are absolutely harrowing. But what countries would you say have the highest instances of irregular migration and why do you think they are top on the continent? Into Europe you generally see the North African countries and there will be a bit of sort of jostling for who's the highest on any given year but a lot of that has to do with again the proximity and the opening of routes so a couple of years ago there are a lot of Tunisians going and then that route closed down now the spotlight is on Egyptians the drivers are massive and they're immense. Right but how effective have the immigration packs signed between the European and African countries being especially when it comes to stemming irregular migration? Regularly are you that they are very ineffective and I do that on a few different grounds first is that they're short term so they do

22:09tend to be what some people will call effective in that they have an immediate impact on stemming specific routes but while there might be successful in the short term they end up exacerbating the drivers of migration that will increase it in the medium in the long term. Amy Noel before I let you go what strategies do you say countries in Africa can employ to curb irregular migration? Yeah I mean there's some technical answers to that question around sort of sharing intelligence and using universal systems and law enforcement collaboration to really crack down on smuggling but we have to again remember that some of these securitized measures give a real rise to smuggling networks so where you used to have small hotels or taxi drivers who are just moving people up towards coastlines now they're really sophisticated criminal enterprises and they're charging a lot more money for people to move so I've always said that some of these securitized measures don't necessarily stop people from coming but it changes who comes and it changes how

23:13they get there so I think we have to keep those factors in mind. Amy Noel and Bioso senior migration researcher at the Institute for Security Studies and that's it on focus on Africa today if you enjoyed listening to the stories we brought you we'd love to hear your feedback our WhatsApp number is plus 44 78 42 61 77 66 or get in touch via social media at BBC Africa or my handle at I am in Kitchen and that's with Dublin you can also email us on focus on Africa at BBC.co.uk this episode was produced by Ayuba Ilya in Lagos Belatwini and blessing Adderogwa where the senior journalist in charge and David and Jenga was the technical producer our editors are Summer Muronga and Mariam Abdullah I am in Kitchen Obun and I will speak to you again soon