A wave of jihadism is spreading through Mozambique and threatens Tanzania and all of southern Africa without any realistic prospects for peace. Ansar Al Sunna is responsible for nearly 3,000 deaths and 700,000 displaced people in the northern part of the country, as well as abuses against women, kidnappings, destructions of hospitals and schools, and a long list of human rights violations.
Ansar Al Sunna is known in Mozambique as Al Shabaab (which we will refer to from now on) and whose translation would be "the youth." Despite sharing a name with another jihadist group based in Somalia, it must be clarified that they are two completely autonomous and distinct entities. They are characterized by being especially cruel towards the civilian population and many NGOs have already condemned these massive human rights violations. Furthermore, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has denounced the recruitment of child soldiers for the organization: "the armed group, known locally as Al-Shabab, has abducted hundreds of boys, some as young as 12, trained them in bases across Cabo Delgado province, and forced them to fight alongside adults against government forces" ("Mozambique: ISIS-linked Group Using Child Soldiers," 2021). These accusations have been denied by Al Shabaab, which claims not to recruit any male under the age of 15 or anyone against their will. Nevertheless, what is beyond doubt is that violent actions are making Mozambique a country increasingly more insecure, violent, chaotic and unstable.
Al Shabaab in Mozambique is located in the northern region of Cabo Delgado, where they carry out terrorist attacks, mainly in the cities of Mocímboa da Praia and Palma. Historically, this has been the poorest province in the country and the one hosting the largest number of Muslims (around 60% of the 18% that exist throughout the country). Added to this is the ethnic rivalry between the mwanis, a majority Muslim group following RENAMO, a guerrilla rebellion, and the makondes, Christians located in the interior of the region and supporters of FRELIMO, the ruling party (Diez Alcalde, 2021). This abject situation of Cabo Delgado's locals clashes with the natural wealth of their land; its abundant source of gas is capable of attracting world powers and making them venture into its exploitation. Moreover, the recent Ukraine war has intensified the search by European countries for new suppliers of natural gas, which this resource can provide "enough quantity to turn Mozambique into the leading African power in this resource and one of the major producers and exporters worldwide. The economic benefits estimated by the Government quadrupled the country's gross domestic product (Sanjuán Martínez, 2021)." The central government eventually granted French gas company Total permission to exploit the natural resource.
This listed reserve of natural gas could propel Mozambique into becoming a powerhouse, but Islamist terrorism has ended up scaring off foreign capital. Some locals from Cabo Delgado and Al Shabaab terrorists understood that the gas project did not guarantee them economic benefits would trickle down to their region, and that, moreover, foreign companies would endanger their traditional way of life as well as agriculture and fishing in Cabo Delgado. With this premise, in March 2021, Islamist militants occupied Palma, the city from where Total's French machinery extracted gas. Al Shabaab besieged Palma, carried out beheadings among civilians, and destroyed numerous properties. Due to little media coverage, we cannot estimate the actual number of deaths. Following the Islamist attack, around 17,000 people had to leave their homes; similarly, the large corporation closed its headquarters and abandoned the region.
Attacks registered in the Cabo Delgado region over the last three years. Source: Department of National Security
However, this attack is not the origin of Al Shabaab. We go back to October 2017, in Mocímboa de Praia, when a multiple police station attack and looting of local businesses resulted in a total of 17 fatalities. Mocímboa de Praia was occupied by unknown assailants until Ansar Al Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack some days later, marking the beginning of a wave of terrorism in northern Mozambique.
Although we have pointed out that social discontent in the country has been the seed of Al Shabaab, it is pertinent to address where this chaos stems from. Since Mozambique's independence from Portugal in 1975, the country has hardly experienced any period of peace and stability. The nation has been plunged into extreme poverty, corruption, and violence. Only two years after achieving independence, Mozambique endured a civil war that lasted until 1992, when a peace agreement was signed. The opposing forces were the Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO) and the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO). Since the aforementioned peace treaty signed in Rome, the only government Mozambique has known is that of FRELIMO, characterized by its corrupt policies and abuses especially against Cabo Delgado province, birthplace of Al Shabaab.
In 2015, Filipe Nyusi was elected president and re-elected four years later "after an election campaign marked by the new Maputo National Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, in which the worrying situation that the northern part of the country was experiencing, increasingly suffocated by the insurgent rebellion, Islamist extremism, and government repression, was completely ignored" (Diez Alcalde, 2021). It is for this reason that Nyusi's figure is a decisive factor in the development of Cabo Delgado terrorist attacks. Far from what could be expected, the Mozambican president rejected any kind of external help for combating terrorism in his country for an extended period. For too long, Filipe Nyusi denied the severity of terrorist actions, undervalued the violence of Al Shabaab militants and limited himself to issuing reassuring messages. Furthermore, he assured that attacks came from outside. The political tactic of the Mozambican leader was to extrapolate the situation to the country as a whole and, more specifically, to the rest of the world, conveying the idea that the situation in Cabo Delgado's northern region was under control.
However, why would a president reject international help to combat terrorism sowing death and destruction in his country? To find out, we will have to wait for the next article.
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