Blindfolded and below armed guard, a captured ISIS fighter is introduced earlier than us.
When the blindfold is eliminated, he does not look shocked to see a digicam crew and several other counterterrorism officers, one in every of whom interrogated him when he was first caught.
The 24-year-old militant is on demise row in Somalia awaiting execution by firing squad, having been accused of being an ISIS commander, in addition to a sniper and a member of a two-man bomb squad.
We have been given extraordinarily uncommon entry to talk to him and one other ISIS recruit in a safe location in Puntland, the semi-autonomous area of northern Somalia the place the phobia group has been seizing territory and ruling over terrified communities.
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Watch the documentary – Attempting to find ISIS: A warning from Africa
US and Somali commanders say ISIS is working its world headquarters in Puntland’s caves, financing its actions worldwide.
Muthar Hamid Qaayid is from Yemen and got here to Somalia through a sea route the place we have witnessed how difficult it’s to halt the move of militant travellers.
He insists he wasn’t an energetic participant within the two-man bomb squad – and appears fully unbothered in regards to the state of affairs 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 accomplice blew himself up as he was planting the bomb in Bosaso metropolis centre and realised he had been found.
Officers imagine he detonated it prematurely.
The person in entrance of us was injured, and we’re instructed he had incriminating bomb-making gear with him.
I ask him if he has regrets about his involvement and becoming a member of 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.” Once more, one other smile.
“If they shoot me or hang me, I don’t mind. In the end, I don’t care.”
Tellingly, he says his household doesn’t like ISIS. “If they found me here, they’d be upset,” he says.
Regardless of persistent questions, he does not shift a lot. “I’m not thinking,” he insists. “There’s nothing. I’m just waiting for death.”
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The ISIS militant speaks to Sky’s Alex Crawford
I ask if he’d heard of individuals being killed by the bombs he is accused of planting.
“Yes, but they don’t kill all people,” he insists.
However what about killing anybody, I recommend, barely puzzled.
“They don’t kill everyone,” he continues. There is a pause. “Only infidels”.
Infidels is a time period many recruits use to explain those that merely do not agree with their strict interpretation of Sharia – that may embody Muslims in addition to different religions.
Officers present us a number of overseas passports recovered from ISIS cave hideouts in Puntland and from these they’ve captured or killed.
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Passports seized from ISIS hideouts and fighters
There are passports for entire households from South Africa, together with kids, in addition to ones from Germany, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Bahrain.
There are additionally handfuls of IDs which present European faces.
Since a Puntland military offensive was launched final December, simply 5 of the 600 ISIS fighters killed have been Somalis, says Mohamed Abdirahman Dhabancad, Puntland’s political affairs consultant.
‘The primary goal was to rule the world’
The second prisoner introduced earlier than us is from Morocco and is far more talkative.
Usman Bukukar Bin Fuad insists he was duped by ISIS and says he solely travelled to Somalia as a result of he’d heard he might become profitable.
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Usman Bukukar Bin Fuad claims he solely dug caves for ISIS
“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 however by no means used it – a declare 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.”
He says he met the ISIS chief in Somalia, Abdul Qadir Mumin, a number of occasions.
“He used to visit all the ISIS camps and encourage them to fight.”
“And he’d reassure us all about going to heaven,” he provides.
It appears to lend credence to the assumption that Mumin continues to be alive and working – up till just a few months in the past anyway.
He says he was given coaching in sniping (which he did not end) and map studying, which was interrupted when the Puntland navy offensive started.
He says he travelled over from Ethiopia with six Moroccans, earlier than assembly an Algerian recruit.
Fellow militants within the ISIS mountain stronghold had been from nations together with 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 a lot discuss sending ISIS fighters to Bosaso, Ethiopia or Yemen. Sending folks to different elements of the world and ruling the world was all a part of the plan.”
The captives’ info has added to the assumption that Puntland and Somalia is simply the tip of an enormous ISIS downside which is spreading and is ready to trigger terror in a variety of how.
Alex Crawford experiences from Somalia with specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Richie Mockler. Images by Chris Cunningham
