Mozambique: Jihadists from abroad pour into Cabo Delgado

Since the beginning of 2024, Mozambique's northernmost province of Cabo Delgado has been engulfed in a new wave of violence. Repeated clashes between armed insurgents and security forces have been rife in several coastal towns. As a result, around 100,000 people, including over 61,000 children, were displaced between early February and early March, according to the UN migration agency.

Mozambique has been fighting the jihadist militants in the north since October 2017.

The insurgent group was initially known as Ansar al-Sunna but proclaimed affiliation with the so-called Islamic State in 2019. It is known locally as al-Shabab, whose name comes from the Arabic word for youth but has no relation to Somalia's al-Shabab militia.

Eyewitnesses repeatedly report brutal violence, beheadings and kidnappings. Around 780,000 people have been displaced because of the seven-year insurgency.

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livus, 2 months ago

From the article:

Fernando Cardoso asserted that Islamist terrorist groups in Africa are becoming increasingly interconnected, making it easier for them to respond to advances by security forces.

Particularly vulnerable areas such as northern Mozambique are left defenseless against heavily armed jihadists, he said.

This thesis is shared by Mozambican security expert Egna Sidumo, who researches conflict resolution for Cabo Delgado at the University of Bergen in Norway. "More and more fighters of different nationalities — mainly Congolese, Ugandans, and Tanzanians, but also Kenyans and South Africans — are streaming into Cabo Delgado," Sidumo told DW....

"When pressured, Islamist fighters withdraw with their weapons from Congo to neighboring Tanzania," Sidumo said. "And from there, it's not far to Mozambique."...

..."I can confirm that jihadists from eastern Congo are present in large numbers in Mozambique," said Fiston Mahamba, a Congolese investigative journalist and researcher at Sorbonne University in Paris.

"Fighters from eastern Congo have been arrested in Mozambique"

Who's bankrolling the insurgency?

"They mainly finance themselves through smuggling of drugs and weapons, but also through kidnappings," Mahamba said.

"In eastern Congo, they regularly raid villages and loot the crops of cocoa farmers, for example. But there are also money transfers from abroad, for example, from organizations connected to IS: Regularly, emissaries from the Middle East arrive with suitcases full of money, from Syria or Iraq."

This system is now gradually being transferred to neighboring countries in the region, especially to northern Mozambique, according to Mahamba.

"The influence of Islamist terrorist organizations in eastern Congo on the Mozambican 'Shabaabs' is unmistakable," Mahamba added.

The investigative journalist cited an example: "Most propaganda videos released by the 'Shabaabs' in Cabo Delgado are written and spoken in Swahili, a style that is familiar mainly in Uganda and eastern Congo, but also in Tanzania," Mahamba told DW.

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