Following the conquest of Mogadishu in 2007, Qalaf went on to serve as head of the Department of Education under the new ICU-government.[1][2] The Somali human rights group Sultan Hurre Human Rights Focus also described him as a "senior leader" of ICU militant youth wing al-Shabaab.[5] After the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in December 2006 and the subsequent fall of the ICU-government, Qalaf and other ICU leaders fled to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.[6] In April 2007 he was reported as living in Kenya.[2]