In a stunning example of terrorist misinformation shaping U.S. policy discussions, the head of United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM), General Michael E. Langley, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 3, 2025, that the Islamic State (ISIS) had relocated its global operations command to Somalia. This assertion, made in an open congressional hearing, aligns directly with false narratives pushed by ISIS, the Taliban, and other terrorist groups to hide the real leaders and the group's true base.
At the heart of this disinformation campaign is Abdulqadir Mumin, the known leader of ISIS-Somalia. Since mid-2024, various media outlets and official reports have speculated that Mumin has been promoted to the role of global caliph—an assertion repeatedly echoed in Washington circles despite glaring inconsistencies, ideological contradictions, and a lack of confirmation from ISIS itself.
This claim appears to serve a strategic deception purpose: masking the fact that Syria remains central to ISIS operations. The current leader, Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, the fifth caliph of ISIS, is alive and operating under the protection of Syria’s new president and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa (also known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani). While he reportedly spent part of early 2025 in Somalia prior to the Eid holiday, he remains actively in command of the group from Syria and prior to that Iraq. The narrative pivot toward Somalia appears intended to lure counterterrorism efforts toward Africa while deflecting scrutiny from Syria-based ISIS leadership as U.S. begins plans to withdraw.
Several think-tanks and media organizations have, knowingly or unknowingly, advanced the idea that Mumin now leads ISIS globally. In June 2024, NBC News and ABC News cited anonymous U.S. officials who claimed Mumin had been named the global leader. In February 2025, the United Nations suggested Mumin was “likely” in charge of ISIS’s global operations and referred to him as the de facto caliph. CTC Sentinel at West Point also referenced Mumin’s possible promotion in their August and September 2024 issues, quoting unnamed U.S. officials while acknowledging ideological conflicts surrounding the claim.
ISIS itself has never officially named Mumin as caliph. The group has instead maintained that its leader is Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi—a Qurayshi, preserving the group’s longstanding ideological requirement for leadership. Mumin, a Somali, does not meet these criteria. His elevation would represent a fundamental break with ISIS’s deeply embedded dogma.
Taliban and ISIS Disinformation Converge
Adding another layer of complexity, the Taliban has also been feeding misinformation suggesting that Mumin is ISIS’s global head. This propaganda appears designed to distract international focus from the Taliban’s own accommodation of terrorists inside of Afghanistan including its support for HTS’s blitzkrieg offensive in Syria in November 2024 and its ongoing harboring of wanted ISIS terrorists.
ADD TALIBAN’S GRAPHIC
Graphic produced by the Taliban’s Directorate General of Intelligence (GDI)
falsely depicting Mumin as the head of ISIS.
This convergence of disinformation across terrorist networks shows the sophistication of ISIS’s global deception strategy—and the risks posed when such narratives are legitimized at the highest levels of the U.S. government. U.S. policymakers must remain vigilant against terrorist influence operations that seek to redirect intelligence resources, obscure command structures, and mislead allies. Any assertion that ISIS’s global operations are now based in Somalia—or that Mumin leads the group globally—is speculative at best, and dangerously misleading at worst.