San Francisco Frontiers - The quiet financier: Islamic State's elusive strongman

The Somalian leader of the Islamic State (IS) group has in all likelihood risen to the status of strongman of the entire organisation, even if he lacks the official title, analysts say.

While observers wonder who is behind IS-designated caliph Abou Hafs al-Hachimi al-Qourachi -- the would-be leader of all Muslims -- or whether such a person actually exists, Abdul Qadir Mumin may already be running IS's general directorate of provinces from Somalia.

"He is the most important person, the most powerful one, he is the one controlling the global Islamic State network," said Tore Hamming, at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR).

In this opaque structure where the leaders get killed one by one by the United States, Mumin is among the few "senior guys who managed to stay alive the entire time until now, which does give him some status within the group", Hamming told AFP.

A few months ago it was thought that an American strike had killed him. But since there was never any proof of his demise, he is considered to be alive and active.

"Somalia is important for financial reasons," said Hamming. "We know that they send money to Congo, to Mozambique, to South Africa, to Yemen, to Afghanistan. So they have a good business model going."

The transactions are so shadowy that even estimating the amounts is impossible -- as is determining the exact routes the money takes from place to place.

- Small territory, big appeal -

Born in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in Somalia's northeast, Sheikh Mumin lived in Sweden before settling in England, where he acquired British nationality.

In London and Leicester, he built a reputation in the early 2000s as a fiery preacher in radical mosques, but also in online videos.

He is said to have burned his British passport upon his arrival in Somalia, where he quickly became a propagandist for the Al-Shabaab group, linked to Al-Qaeda, before announcing his defection to IS in 2015.

"He controls a small territory but has a big appeal. He distributes volunteers and money," said a European intelligence official, who declined to be named, claiming that an IS attack in May in Mozambique "was carried out by Maghreb and African militants".

Mumin also finances the Ugandan rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) -- affiliated with IS in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- "who now number between 1,000 and 1,500," the official said. With Mumin's help, "they have recently turned to the jihad" seeking "radicalism, weapons, and funding".

Some observers have described him as the caliph of the jihadist command structure. However, such an official designation would signal an ideological reversal for the group with deep roots in the Levant, the territory of the IS caliphate that lasted from 2014 to 2019 and spanned Iraq and Syria.

"That would create some kind of uproar within the community of supporters and sympathisers of IS," said Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP) think tank.

- Shift toward Africa -

In theory, the caliph has to be an Arab from a tribe linked to the prophet. The supreme leader of a group so concerned with its ideological foundations "cannot be just any Somali with an orange beard," Schindler told AFP.

Especially because leaders of operationally active IS affiliates, such as IS-K in Afghanistan or ISWAP in western Africa, could lay claim to the position.

While the Somalian does not meet traditional leadership criteria, his geographical location brings some advantages.

"The Horn of Africa may have offered welcome insulation from instability in the Levant and greater freedom of movement," said CTC Sentinel, a publication on terrorism threats, at the West Point military academy.

"This profile of leadership parallels that of another jihadi leader -- Osama bin Laden -- who saw that funding his war was most central to winning it," it said.

Mumin's rise to the top, despite the small number of fighters under his command, also reflects two internal dynamics within IS.

The first, said Hamming, is that "the caliph is no longer the most important person in the Islamic State".

And the second is that IS is indeed pursuing a gradual strategic shift toward Africa.

"Ninety percent of violent images on jihad consumed in Europe come from Africa," said the European intelligence official.

Nonetheless, the organisation's leadership remains centralised in the Middle East, wrote CTC Sentinel.

"In this sense, much is business as usual," it said.

J.Martinez--SFF