The Islamic State in Somalia (short: ISS) or Abnaa ul-Calipha is an Islamic State–affiliated group that primarily operates in the mountainous areas of Puntland, though has also claimed responsibility for several terrorist attacks throughout the rest of Somalia. Led by Sheikh Abdul Qadir Mumin, the group is estimated to have up to 300 active fighters. Since its formation, ISS probably managed to take control of a small, sparsely populated territory in northern Somalia's mountainous hinterland, though it was not acknowledged as official province ("Wilayat") by IS's central leadership until December 2017. Since then, it has sometimes been called Somalia Province ("Wilayat al Somal") by pro-IS media. ISS is also the declared enemy of al-Shabaab, which considers the Islamic State a significant threat to its own predominance among Jihadist factions in Somalia. History Origins and formation The origins of the Islamic State in Somalia trace back to 2012, when Abdul Qadir Mumin was sent by the al-Shabaab leadership to its remote outpost in Puntland, far from the insurgent group's primary areas of operation in southern Somalia. As cleric with little military experience, Mumin's role in Puntland was originally to attract recruits for the numerical small and militarily weak local al-Shabaab group, which was led by Mohamed Said Atom at the time. In course of the Galgala campaign in 2014, however, Atom defected to the government, and Mumin was forced to take control of the Puntland group. Isolated in the remote north and feeling increasingly distanced from al-Shabaab, Mumin began to consider himself more and more independent. Meanwhile, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant had launched a propaganda campaign to convince al-Shabaab to join to them, which was "angrily refused" by al-Shabaab's central leadership. Despite this, several groups of al-Shabaab members found IS's ideology attractive or saw this new Jihadist organization as a way to challenge al-Shabaab's leadership at the time. Thus, several small pro-IS groups emerged in southern Somalia. This was however not tolerated by the Somali organization, which released statements condemning dissenters and ordered its internal security service Amniyat to arrest or kill pro-IS elements such as Hussein Abdi Gedi's faction in Middle Juba. Mumin, however, long dissatisfied with his situation, pledged bay'ah to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State in October 2015. This caused a violent split within Puntland's al-Shabaab, as only 20 of the 300 local Islamist fighters joined Mumin, while the al-Shabaab loyalists attempted