In Somalia's remote al-Miskad mountains, a group of soldiers huddles around a small hand-held screen, tracking Islamic State group fighters on a drone feed. A figure appears in the picture, moving through a valley. "He has been to fetch water for his friends," says the drone operator. "He is running and carrying something on his back," adds another soldier. The man on the screen is near a cave, which the army believes is a hideout for 50 to 60 IS fighters. The Puntland Defence Forces have about 500 soldiers stationed at this base in the north-east of Somalia. Ten years ago the barren and inhospitable landscape was home to only a few nomadic communities, but that changed when IS established a foothold here, shifting its focus to Africa as its fighters were driven out of their strongholds in Syria and Iraq. By April 2025, Gen Michael Langley, who was then the commander of United States Africa Command (Africom), told the US Congress that "ISIS controls their global network from Somalia".…