Islamic State militants in Somalia said in 2019 they would release jihadist material in Amharic, a step aimed at winning recruits in neighboring Ethiopia, Voice of America reported.
An aerial view of Bosaso, the port city in Somalia’s Puntland region, photographed on January 25, 2025. (Sam Wilson / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) [file photo]
The announcement came in a three-minute video released in July 2019 by pro-Islamic State sites and endorsed by the group’s official media, VOA’s Harun Maruf reported on Aug. 19. The video carried the words of one of the group’s best-known chants in Amharic and promised more material in the language.
Matt Bryden, an analyst with Kenya-based Sahan Research, said the group was reaching out to Ethiopia’s Muslim community to exploit ethnic and political unrest. “I think ISIS sees in Ethiopia a potential opportunity,” he told VOA’s Somali service.
Bryden said Ethiopia’s unrest might be worsening despite reforms by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, including the release of thousands of political prisoners and the peace deal with Eritrea. “Where there are communities with grievances, where violence is becoming increasingly the norm, there are opportunities for the extremist groups to recruit,” he said.
Pro-Islamic State militants emerged in Somalia in October 2015, when a small group of al-Shabab fighters broke away and pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The group kept a presence in northeastern Somalia and around Mogadishu despite offensives by al-Shabab and the Somali government, VOA said.
Experts said the Amharic video showed the group had members from Ethiopia. In December 2017, IS Somalia released a video of an Ethiopian jihadist, identified as Abu Zubayr Al-Habash, speaking in Amharic; a 2019 video announced his death without giving a cause.
A former IS Somalia member told VOA Somali the group had about eight Ethiopians among its estimated 300 members. The Ethiopian prime minister’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment, VOA said.
On Aug. 20, 2025, Puntland officials said nearly 700 foreign fighters had been killed in an offensive against Islamic State in the Cal Miskaad mountains of the Bari region, launched in late 2024, Hiiraan Online reported. Mohamed Abdirahman Dhaban’ad, political adviser to Puntland’s president, said some of the foreigners were Ethiopians who crossed the border claiming asylum before joining the group.
Sources: Voice of America (Harun Maruf, Aug. 19, 2019), GlobalSecurity.org (VOA text), Hiiraan Online (Aug. 20, 2025)