Three U.S. officials reported on Saturday that the U.S. military targeted the global leader of the ISIS terrorist organization in a late-month airstrike in Somalia, but his death cannot be confirmed. The U.S. government identified Abdul Qadir Mumin as the ISIS leader in Somalia. However, according to NBC News, U.S. officials indicated he became the global leader of the organization last year.
The U.S. Africa Command issued a statement on May 31, stating they had launched an airstrike against ISIS militants 81 kilometers from Bosaso, Somalia, killing three militants. The statement did not specify the identities of the targets or confirm their deaths.
Three U.S. officials have now said Mumin was the target of the operation, but his death remains unconfirmed. A senior administration official confirmed that the U.S. targeted a significant ISIS figure in Somalia but withheld the name, stating that efforts are ongoing to verify the result. A senior defense official noted that ISIS in Somalia is relatively small, comprising only 100 to 200 fighters, all based in northern Somalia, with small other ISIS-aligned groups in parts of Africa, including Libya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mozambique.
The U.S. states that Mumin is responsible for deadly attacks in Somalia over the past decade, including the assassination of a judicial official at his home in 2019 and the capture and occupation of a city in the Puntland region in 2016 for several months.
Two U.S. officials mentioned that Mumin’s ascension to the position of global ISIS leader was not widely known following the death of Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi in Syria in late 2022.
