SITUATION REPORT: Jihad grows in Africa – Scores feared dead as Islamic State strikes in Mozambique

Location Mozambique. Green pin on the map.

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On Wednesday 24 March some 150 Islamic State jihadists launched a coordinated attack in the southeast African nation of Mozambique, seizing control of a city of 75,000 and killing scores of people.

Over the past week, in the wake of the ISIS assault, the jihadists have consolidated control over the northern town of Palma as Mozambique’s army struggles to respond. Because the jihadists  largely remain in control of the region, information is sparse and sometimes contradictory. There are concerns that many innocent civilians, including foreign workers in the natural gas industry, may have been killed. Reports describe numerous beheadings carried out by the occupying jihadists.

This is but the latest major example of the jihadist insurgency raging across Africa.

The jihad that has struck Mozambique started around 2017 and is being waged by a group affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS). It is referred to locally as Al Shabab, but has no known affiliation with the Jihadist group of the same name based in Somalia. Its actual name is Ahlu-Sunnah Wa-Jama (ASWJ). Since 2017, ASWJ has killed 2,600 people in Mozambique and their guerrilla warfare has displaced as many as 670,000. Mozambique’s population is 18% Muslim.

A year ago, in March 2020, while the world was focusing on the breaking Wuhan virus pandemic, ASWJ seized two northern Mozambique coastal towns and routed local Mozambique military and police units. After some period of weeks, Mozambique’s army regained control of the towns and ASWJ faded back into the wilderness.

Shortly thereafter, Mozambique reportedly contracted with Russian, South African and U.S. security firms to provide security. At the same time, U.S. Special Forces advisors arrived to train the army. There are reports that France has also dispatched units of the French Foreign Legion to Mozambique.

Palma is the town closest to a large liquefied natural gas (LNG) deposit operated by the French petro-conglomerate Total. Last year Total cut back its operations in Mozambique due to security concerns as a result of the jihadist insurgency. In just the last week, Total announced that they were once again ramping up operations. ASWJ may have launched its attack in response. At any rate, if ASWJ sought to stop Total from its economic development of Mozambique, they seem to have succeeded. Total has already put its operations on hold yet again.

While ASWJ has been largely indiscriminate in doling out its violence, there are signs that they particularly targeted expatriate workers with this latest attack. The number of people killed and wounded in this week’s attack on Palma, or still unaccounted for, remains uncertain.

Colonel Lionel Dyke of Dyck Advisory Group, a private security firm, told the BBC that “the town and beaches are strewn with bodies with heads and without.” Hundreds reportedly fled the fighting, running into the bush and nearby mangroves swamps. According to the Daily Mail, “scores” of foreigners are unaccounted for.

Hundreds of South African, British and French workers sheltered at hotels in Palma targeted by jihadis. An estimated 200 foreign workers were believed to be in the Hotel Amarula. A 17-vehicle convoy of vehicles attempted to leave the hotel for the coast but were ambushed. Only 7 vehicles made it through. In the 7 vehicles that made it, seven passengers were confirmed dead. There were also an undetermined number of wounded. The 10 vehicles that failed to make it through are unaccounted for and the passengers are assumed dead or captured.

Africa continues to be the most active theater in the global jihadist insurgency.

ISIS has taken over large swaths of Mozambique. Boko Haram, notorious for kidnapping hundreds of Christian schoolgirls in 2014 (nearly half of whom were never recovered), operates in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Burkina Faso. Al Shabaab operates mainly in Somalia and Kenya but has also carried out operations in Uganda and Ethiopia. Al Shabaab has a support network in the U.S., particularly in the Minneapolis region among the Somali expatriate community there. There have been multiple convictions of Somalis on material support for terrorism charges in the U.S. and the group has threatened the U.S. in the past.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) remains active in Algeria, Mali, Libya, Niger and Mauritania. AQIM recently named a new emir, Abu Ubaidah Yusef al-Annabi. Al-Annabi replaced Abdelmalek Droukdel (Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud), who was killed in June in Mali by French military operators under the Commandement des Opérations Spéciales.

History has shown that whenever Jihadists establish a stronghold, they use it as a launching pad to spread their insurgency. It is worth noting that Osama Bin Laden was based in Sudan during the period when Al Qaeda first declared war on America.

We are now seeing much of an entire continent engulfed by violence. While there is a long history of analysts dismissing Africa, when it comes to jihad, we ignore Africa at our own peril.

Christopher Holton

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