On the night of May 24, 2026, Islamic State Somalia (IS-Somalia) militants conducted a coordinated ambush against Puntland forces at Afka Curaar in the Togga Jecel valley of the Cal Miskaad mountains. Four soldiers were killed and four others wounded. Days earlier, a separate ambush at Markadan in the Jaceel valley killed at least five soldiers. IS-Somalia also fired mortar rounds at a telecommunications tower in Sheebaab, Qandala district, disrupting internet services across the region. These are not isolated incidents. They are the latest in a sustained counter-offensive that IS-Somalia has conducted across the Cal Miskaad mountains throughout May 2026, and they raise a question worth asking honestly: can Puntland consolidate what Operation Hilaac achieved, or is the campaign’s hard-won progress now at risk?

That operation, codenamed Hilaac, was launched in late 2024 with considerable ambition. Backed by US AFRICOM airstrikes and UAE drone support, Puntland forces drove deep into Cal Miskaad, capturing dozens of IS-Somalia bases, severing key supply routes, and reclaiming significant territory. The operation drew international recognition, with partners and observers commending Puntland’s resolve in confronting one of the region’s most persistent security threats. By early 2025, Puntland declared meaningful victory. IS-Somalia, it was said, had been dislodged from its mountainous stronghold. The declaration was premature.

IS-Somalia’s An-Naba media announced the group’s return to the Miraale valley on May 15, a date that also marked the expiry of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s term in office. This is significant. The valley was among the most concrete achievements of Operation Hilaac. Puntland forces fought hard to take it and held it up as evidence that the campaign had worked. Now that claim is in doubt. Attacks have continued across several locations in the mountains since then. Casualty figures remain difficult to independently confirm, but the frequency of incidents over recent weeks points in one direction: the security situation in Cal Miskaad has deteriorated.

The resurgence was not inevitable. When Operation Hilaac concluded, Puntland carried out an armed forces rotation, repositioning its regular Darawish units from secured positions in Cal Miskaad. President Said Abdullahi Deni indicated that the forces were being repositioned and retrained in preparation for Operation Onkod, a planned offensive against al-Shabaab in the Cal Madow mountains modelled on the Hilaac campaign. Disorganised community-based armed groups were left to hold the ground in the interim. No civilian administration followed the military advance. Communities in liberated areas were left without a functioning state presence. The conditions for IS-Somalia’s return were not created by the group’s strength. They were created by what was left behind.

The decision reflected genuine resource constraints. Puntland’s Defence Forces, which comprise the Puntland Darawish Forces, the Puntland Maritime Police Force, and the Puntland Police Force, are chronically under-resourced, and the financial burden of a prolonged mountain campaign was significant. However, community-based armed groups lack the training, equipment, and command integration necessary to hold contested terrain against a reconstituting insurgency. IS-Somalia recognised this transition immediately and has since directed explicit threats at pro-Puntland fighters and anyone providing them material support, a deliberate strategy of social isolation designed to collapse the holding force from within. The strategy appears to be succeeding.

The second structural problem is the gap between military clearance and governance consolidation. Operation Hilaac succeeded in the kinetic phase. What followed it, including civilian administration, justice delivery, and economic relief for pastoral communities who had lived under IS-Somalia’s coercive presence, did not materialise at the pace or scale that durable stabilisation requires. Liberated areas were cleared but not governed. That distinction matters enormously. IS-Somalia does not need to outfight Puntland’s Defence Forces to maintain its presence in Cal Miskaad. It needs only to be more present than the state in the spaces the state has vacated.

The conflict has also taken a civilian toll that deserves more scrutiny than it has received. On May 21, an airstrike struck a pastoral area in Bari region, killing a pregnant woman and her four children. The father survived with injuries but has received no medical assistance or state support. No official statement has been issued, and no investigation has been announced. The accountability gap is not unique to this case. According to Antiwar.com’s count, based on AFRICOM press releases, the United States has launched at least 63 airstrikes in Somalia in 2026 alone, in both southern Somalia and Puntland, putting the Trump administration on track to exceed its own record of 124 strikes set in 2025. AFRICOM has not acknowledged a strike since May 6, though the command has previously taken days or weeks to confirm operations. Notably, it has also stopped publishing casualty estimates or civilian harm assessments. Days after the May 21 strike, Puntland authorities issued a five-day evacuation order to pastoral communities across the Cal Miskaad mountains, stating that the administration would bear no responsibility for civilian casualties from ongoing operations. The cumulative picture, of repeated strikes, no acknowledgement, no investigations, and a state that formally disclaims responsibility for those caught in the crossfire, raises questions that neither Mogadishu nor international partners have yet chosen to answer.

Somalia’s Federal Government has yet to treat the IS-Somalia threat in Puntland as a national priority. That position is difficult to justify. The group’s founder holds a senior position within the Islamic State’s international hierarchy, and IS-Somalia has consistently sought to frame its operations in northern Somalia as part of a broader regional and global project. Its recruitment networks extend into East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The security challenge in Cal Miskaad is therefore not contained within Puntland’s borders. It carries implications for regional stability and for Somalia’s international standing. Addressing it requires federal financial support for Puntland’s Defence Forces, structured intelligence cooperation between the two administrations, and a political commitment from Mogadishu that matches the scale of the threat.

The timing of IS-Somalia’s resurgence is worth noting. Somalia is in an election year. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s term ended on May 15, and an electoral roadmap is expected to be negotiated and agreed in the coming months. Puntland holds more than forty parliamentary seats, making it a key player in that process. At the same time, reports of pro-FGS militias operating inside Puntland have circulated in recent weeks, with some video footage emerging showing fighters identifying themselves as operating under the Federal Government’s command. Managing an active insurgency in the mountains while navigating a contested electoral season is a difficult combination. The group has historically escalated during periods of political transition in Somalia.

Operation Hilaac showed that IS-Somalia can be degraded in its own terrain. What the events of recent months have shown is that degrading a group and preventing its return are not the same achievement. Puntland is now facing the harder of the two. Meeting that challenge requires more than another offensive. It requires a state presence that outlasts the fighting, and a recognition that military campaigns without that presence will keep arriving at the same destination.