The head of a Somali armed group of Daesh-linked militants in East Africa, Somalia in particular, was designated a global terrorist by the U.S State Department Wednesday, a move which makes him subject to economic sanctions.
“Abdiqadir Mumin is the head of a group of ISIL-linked individuals in East Africa,†said a State Department statement.
“Mumin, a former al-Shabaab recruiter and spokesman, pledged allegiance to ISIL [Daesh], along with around 20 of his followers, in October 2015, and has set up a base in Puntland, Somalia. Since then, Mumin has expanded his cell of ISIL supporters by kidnapping young boys aged 10 to 15, indoctrinating them, and forcing them to take up militant activity.â€
Mumin belonged to al-Shabaab for at least four years before pledging allegiance to Daesh, even rising to the position of commander based in the Galgala hills in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland regional administration.
In Galgala, the group launched attacks in the northern Somali region of Bari, Puntland.
Before Somalia, Mumin lived in Britain and was linked to the 2013 murder of British Army soldier Drummer Lee Rigby.
This May his group claimed their first attack in Somalia, saying its fighters detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) targeting a military vehicle belonging to the African Union peacekeeping force AMISOM in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu. It was not clear whether anybody was either killed or wounded in the attack.