BOSASO, Somalia – Authorities in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region claim a major military offensive launched late last year has killed nearly 700 foreign fighters linked to the Islamic State (ISIS) in a remote mountain stronghold.

The statement, which Caasimada Online has not independently verified, came from Mohamed Abdirahman Dhabancad, a senior political adviser to the Puntland president. He said that in contrast to the large number of foreign casualties, only five Somali nationals fighting alongside the group were killed in the operations.

Speaking to Sky News, Dhabancad said the foreign militants came from more than 20 countries across Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia. As evidence, he displayed a collection of passports allegedly seized from the dead fighters.

If accurate, the figures would mark one of the deadliest blows to foreign jihadists in Somalia in recent memory.

The campaign is concentrated in the Cal Miskaad mountains, a rugged and difficult-to-access range in Puntland’s Bari region. For years, this terrain has served as a key sanctuary for ISIS-Somalia.

The group, known locally as Daacish, first emerged in 2015 when Abdiqadir Mumin broke away from al-Shabaab and pledged allegiance to ISIS. Though smaller than al-Shabaab, the faction carved out a foothold in Puntland, using the mountain bases to train fighters and launch attacks.

Puntland officials say sustained military pressure is paying off, claiming that around 70 percent of the ISIS force once present in the Cal Miskaad mountains has now been “eliminated.”

An international threat

According to Dhabancad, many of the foreign militants used clandestine methods to enter Somalia. Some, he said, crossed illegally from Ethiopia by posing as refugees. Others are believed to have arrived by boat across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, slipping onto Somalia’s coastline without documents through established smuggling routes.

The involvement of foreign fighters in Somalia’s extremist networks is well-documented. A 2022 United Nations report highlighted the continued, though limited, flow of foreign terrorist fighters into the region, underscoring the persistent international dimension of the conflict.

Still, casualty figures in Somalia’s long-running war are notoriously hard to verify. Each side frequently releases conflicting or inflated numbers, often for propaganda purposes.

While Puntland’s forces have spearheaded the campaign against ISIS in the north, the federal government in Mogadishu has concentrated its military efforts against al-Shabaab. This al-Qaeda-linked insurgency still controls large swathes of rural southern and central Somalia.