Blindfolded and under armed guard, a captured ISIS fighter is brought before us.
When the blindfold is removed, he doesn’t look surprised to see a camera crew and several counterterrorism officers, one of whom interrogated him when he was first caught.
The 24-year-old militant is on death row in Somalia awaiting execution by firing squad, having been accused of being an ISIS commander, as well as a sniper and a member of a two-man bomb squad.
We’ve been given extremely rare access to speak to him and another ISIS recruit in a secure location in Puntland, the semi-autonomous region of northern Somalia where the terror group has been seizing territory and ruling over terrified communities.
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US and Somali commanders say ISIS is running its global headquarters in Puntland’s caves, financing its activities worldwide.
Muthar Hamid Qaayid is from Yemen and came to Somalia via a sea route where we’ve witnessed how challenging it is to halt the flow of militant travellers.
He insists he wasn’t an active participant in the two-man bomb squad – and seems entirely unbothered about the situation he now finds himself in.
“I didn’t press the button,” he says. “I just looked. The other man made the bomb and set it off. I didn’t come here to kill Muslims.”
His partner blew himself up as he was planting the bomb in Bosaso city centre and realised he had been discovered.
Officers believe he detonated it prematurely.
The man in front of us was injured, and we are told he had incriminating bomb-making equipment with him.
I ask him if he has regrets about his involvement and joining the militant group.
“I don’t regret anything,” he says, smiling. “Even if you take me out of the room now and execute me, I don’t regret anything.” Again, another smile.
“If they shoot me or hang me, I don’t mind. In the end, I don’t care.”
Tellingly, he says his family does not like ISIS. “If they found me here, they’d be upset,” he says.
Despite persistent questions, he doesn’t shift much. “I’m not thinking,” he insists. “There’s nothing. I’m just waiting for death.”
I ask if he’d heard of people being killed by the bombs he’s accused of planting.
“Yes, but they don’t kill all people,” he insists.
But what about killing anyone, I suggest, slightly puzzled.
“They don’t kill everyone,” he continues. There’s a pause. “Only infidels”.
Infidels is a term many recruits use to describe those who simply don’t agree with their strict interpretation of Sharia – that can include Muslims as well as other religions.
Officials show us multiple foreign passports recovered from ISIS cave hideouts in Puntland and from those they’ve captured or killed.
There are passports for whole families from South Africa, including children, as well as ones from Germany, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Bahrain.
There are also handfuls of IDs which show European faces.
Since a Puntland army offensive was launched last December, just five of the 600 ISIS fighters killed have been Somalis, says Mohamed Abdirahman Dhabancad, Puntland’s political affairs representative.
‘The main target was to rule the world’
The second prisoner brought before us is from Morocco and is much more talkative.
Usman Bukukar Bin Fuad insists he was duped by ISIS and says he only travelled to Somalia because he’d heard he could make money.
“Instead, I ended up digging caves,” he says. “It was difficult to escape but when they told me to put on a suicide vest to kill Puntland forces, I said this is not what you told me I would be doing – and I escaped.”
He says he was given a weapon but never used it – a claim not believed by his captors.
“I never joined any fight,” he insists. “I had my weapon [AK47] but I just did normal duties taking supplies from location to location and following orders.”
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He says he met the ISIS leader in Somalia, Abdul Qadir Mumin, several times.
“He used to visit all the ISIS camps and encourage them to fight.”
“And he’d reassure us all about going to heaven,” he adds.
It seems to lend credence to the belief that Mumin is still alive and operating – up until a few months ago anyway.
He says he was given training in sniping (which he didn’t finish) and map reading, which was interrupted when the Puntland military offensive began.
He says he travelled over from Ethiopia with six Moroccans, before meeting an Algerian recruit.
Fellow militants in the ISIS mountain stronghold were from countries including Tunisia, Libya, Tanzania, Kenya, Turkey, Argentina, Bangladesh, Sweden, and Iraq.
“The main target or focus was to rule the world,” he says. “Starting with this region as one of the gates to the world, then Ethiopia and the rest of the world.
“I heard so much talk about sending ISIS fighters to Bosaso, Ethiopia or Yemen. Sending people to other parts of the world and ruling the world was all part of the plan.”
The captives’ information has added to the belief that Puntland and Somalia is just the tip of a huge ISIS problem which is spreading and is able to cause terror in a range of ways.
Alex Crawford reports from Somalia with specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Richie Mockler. Photography by Chris Cunningham
