Islamic State uses motorcycle and vehicle explosives to assault military installations in Puntland, Somalia

In Somalia’s northeastern Puntland state, the Islamic State armed organization used suicide car and motorcycle bombings to strike military outposts overnight, a military spokesman said Tuesday.

Since announcing a massive attack against Islamic State and its rival Islamist organization, the al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab, in December, Puntland says it has killed scores of foreign militants, taken control of multiple IS locations, and forced the surrender of a top leader.

“We were assaulted by IS forces using suicide car and motorcycle bombings in the freshly freed locations last night after midnight. The combat is still going on, and we were attacked by a lot of IS soldiers,” Puntland military spokeswoman Mohamud Fadhigo told Reuters.

Earlier this month, U.S. airstrikes targeted the Somali branch of Islamic State, which has grown in importance within its parent organization’s global network in recent years.

The state news agency of Somalia said Tuesday that military installations in the Hagaaro and Togo-Jecel regions of Puntland’s Cal Miskaad highlands have been defended by security troops against assaults.

Thanks to a surge in foreign soldiers and rising income, Islamic State’s Somalia wing has expanded in recent years, now numbering between 700 and 1,500 militants. However, it is still far smaller than al Shabaab, which is in charge of a sizable portion of central and southern Somalia.