NY (SD) The number of foreign fighters joining the ISIS group in Somalia has once again been reported to be increasing, a trend linked to what the United Nations has referred to as the influx of foreign militants.

A recent report released this week by the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia warned that foreign fighters, including those from the Middle East, have been assisting ISIS in Somalia.

The number of ISIS fighters currently in Somalia is estimated to be between 600 and 700.

“Foreign fighters are arriving in Puntland using sea and land routes,” said an intelligence report.

These foreign fighters “have strengthened and boosted the group’s capacity,” the report stated. Intelligence sources have described the advance of ISIS in the Cal-Miskaad mountains of Puntland as a significant shift.

The UN report mentioned that these foreign ISIS fighters have come from at least six countries: Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, Sudan, Morocco, and Tanzania.

It also indicated that some of the foreign fighters captured had confessed to working with trainers from parts of the Middle East.

This new report aligns with earlier warnings from the U.S. and Somalia, including statements from the head of the U.S. Africa Command, who told VOA last month that ISIS in Somalia had doubled in size over the past year.

The report confirmed that the former leader of ISIS-Somalia, Abdulqadir Muumin, who survived a U.S. airstrike in June, has been promoted to the head of ISIS’s general directorate and plays a leadership role in ISIS’s African operations.