From the jungle to the beach
It appears that RENAMO activities have spread from the interior, possibly alongside criminal kidnappers:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...e-tourism.html
The (UK) Foreign Office warns that:
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the situation in Sofala Province remains tense and on October 22 there were reports of armed attacks in the region, including against a vehicle travelling on the EN1 road. Further attacks can’t be ruled out. There have also been reports of violent clashes between government forces and Renamo in Manica and Nampula provinces, and an armed attack on a civilian vehicle travelling along the E8 road between Nampula and Malema. Take extra care when travelling by road outside urban areas in the affected provinces.
An unknown 'Small War' may end
Note the last post was in November 2013. Just caught an update via Twitter:
Quote:
A sense of calm has descended on Mozambique after
long-standing civil war foes the Mozambique National Resistance Movement (Renamo) guerrillas and the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) government agreed to a new year ceasefire.
Link:http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/relative-calm-descends-mozambique-optimism-grows-long-lasting-truce-1598541?
The article implies there has been an insurgency since mid-2015, which I had not spotted - hence the title.
I note the apparent map of AFRICOM's SOF activity does not include Mozambique:https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31/...s-shadow-wars/
What could go wrong: bankers and spooks borrow $2billion
Sad tale how Mozambique's security agency negotiated a US$2billion loan, on the expectation of wealth from natural gas offshore and failed to tell anyone. The result:
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... has caused a fiscal crisis that means interest on loans, civil service new year bonuses and other government bills was not paid this month.
Link:https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...es-debt-crisis
Might this factor in trying to get peace with Renamo?
Northern Mozambique: a small Islamist war?
Northern Mozambique rarely gets any coverage, but an odd South African press report, since denied officially, a few days ago suggests that a 'small war' is underway and a little digging found more.
Some context from an October 2017 commentary helps:
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Cabo Delgado is a Muslim-majority province where discoveries of giant oil and gas reserves have brought international conglomerates and their private security, making the area a potential powder-keg. On top of this, the area is desperately poor. Northern areas of Mozambique have gained little from the economic boom of the 2000s. Mocimboa da Praia is a case in point: little development has been seen even as expectations exploded following the discovery of massive gas and oil reserves in the province.
Billions of dollars have been invested in offshore drilling, with little benefit to local communities.
Link:https://theconversation.com/why-isla...zambique-85504
The odd, if not strange South African report started with:
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It is believed that the group headed to Nacala to bolster the Isis stronghold at the port where containers laden with drugs are offloaded monthly from cargo ships.
According to well-placed intelligence sources, the infiltrators entered from the island of Zanzibar and used Tanzania as springboard to cross the border into Mozambique. There have been numerous prior infiltrations, but this was the largest single group that came into the neighbouring state, the sources indicated.
Although not confirmed yet, security experts indicated that the jihadists may try to join forces with Renamo rebels in a united front against the Frelimo government, so as to bolster their stand in the neighbouring country.
Link:https://lowvelder.co.za/429211/isis-...mbique-part-1/
A new short backgrounder opens with:
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Networks of powerful, politically connected criminal actors have created an enabling environment for an Islamic insurgency in northern Mozambique that is terrorizing local communities and threatening the country’s stability.
Long before the violence began, the locals had been pleading with Maputo to pay attention to their plight. In the sleepy fishing village of Mocímboa da Praia, in the north of Cabo Delgado Province, they said an Islamist group had established itself in the area. They were taking control of the mosques, or establishing their own, they said, and preaching an anti-state ideology and a strict version of Islam at odds with local values.
It also comments on the previous press story:
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The real story is that, for over two decades, drug trafficking – and a host of other illicit activities, including wildlife poaching, and smuggling timber and gems – has been allowed to flourish in the north of Mozambique, under full view of the authorities and local inhabitants. Certain groups have seen to it that the border and ports are permeable to all kinds of contraband. Businessmen, local and foreign, have grown enormously wealthy on the back of this illicit economy, while the local communities have remained, for the most part, desperately poor.
Link:http://globalinitiative.net/northern...on-corruption/
Northern Mozambique: 'jihadists behead' villagers
A very short BBC report based on AFP:
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One of the victims of the weekend attack was the leader of Monjane village, a local resident told the AFP news agency."They targeted the chief as he had been providing information to the police about the location of al-Shabab in forests," he is quoted as saying.
Then as background it cites a source, which alas is a series of PPT in Portuguese by a UK academic expert on the region:
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Recent academic research... found that early members of the group, sometimes also called al-Sunna, were followers of a radical Kenyan preacher who was killed in 2012.His followers moved south and settled in Kibiti in southern Tanzania, near the border with Mozambique.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-44289512
Mozambique’s mysterious insurgency
A South African newspaper article that asks what is going on. Id'd via Twitter where author, Simon Allison points out:
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No one has a clue what is driving the violence in northern Mozambique. But mixing Islamist militants, trigger-happy soldiers, vast reserves of natural gas and Erik Prince (of Blackwater infamy) seems like a terrible idea.
It ends with:
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Northern Mozambique is a powder keg. Whatever is behind the conflict in the area, there is no doubt that it is a toxic mix. The combination of radical Islamists, American mercenaries, brutal armed groups and trigger-happy soldiers is one we have seen before, in Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia and Libya, with devastating consequences.Vast quantities of high-grade hydrocarbons won’t help either, nor will a government that is as corrupt as it is dysfunctional. But before anyone can begin to grapple with the problems, they need to understand the nature of the threat. So far, the rumours far outweigh the research.
Link:https://mg.co.za/article/2018-06-22-...ous-insurgency
The Uberization of Mozambique's heroin trade
A short open source paper 'The Uberization of Mozambique's heroin trade' by a known SME, Joseph Hanlon, via LSE, London. His conclusion opens with:
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Mozambique is an important heroin transit country, with a heroin trail that goes Afghanistan-Pakistan-Mozambique-South Africa-Europe. An estimated 10-40 tonnes or more of heroin passes through each year. This could be adding $100 million per year in corrupt money to the local economy, and is clearly having an impact on an already corrupted state.The trade seems to be increasing as crackdowns in Kenya and Tanzania are diverting heroin through Mozambique.
Link:http://www.lse.ac.uk/international-d...pers/WP190.pdf
This helps to explain several large seizures of heroin on dhows along the East African coast which appear in the thread for Tanzania.
Link:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ania-catch-all
It may contribute to the reported insurgency as a corrupted, weak state is likely.
Mozambique: Counting attacks and arrests diverts quest for stability and development
An update on the situation by a local, though not from Mozambique:https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/arti...-cabo-delgado/
Mozambique’s Next Step in Countering Violent Extremism
A new article from The Wilson Centre (in the USA).
A few passages:
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The experts, meanwhile, have warned against repression and advocated for ‘soft measures,’ to little discernable effect. The sum total is discouraging. One observer recently compared
Northern Mozambique to Northeastern Nigeria at the beginning of the Boko Haram uprising.
Mozambique may represent a new pattern as well. As Islamist militancy continues to spread across Africa, it is moving beyond hotspot countries—Nigeria, Somalia, Libya, Mali—and their immediate neighborhoods. Violent extremism is now reaching peripheral Muslim communities that, as a small fraction of an overall national population, are ancillary political players and something of an afterthought for the central government.
Link:https://africaupclose.wilsoncenter.o...ent-extremism/
Tanzania arrests 104 people for plotting 'radical camps' in Mozambique
A Reuters report on Tanzanian action, based on official statement(s) and includes this, possibly new information:
Quote:
Earlier this month, Mozambique put 189 people, including foreigners, on trial on accusations of involvement in Islamist attacks in Cabo Delgado.
Link:https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-ta...-idUKKCN1MU0N1
Interesting to note Tanzania has a large natural gas field offshore that awaits investment.
Mozambique: the youth factor
Eleanor Beevor is a new analyst @ IISS and has given permission to use part of a recent note on the global jihad. I have bolded one significant aspect:
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One of my concerns is that many of today’s struggling youth will recognise this fact. That is, when trying to advance their own localised struggles – be they social, political or economic – they will face the temptation of using jihadist allegiances and tactics for maximum reaction and effect. I therefore don’t think that we will see a decline in the declarations of jihad among marginalised youth around the world, or at least not for as long as that provokes an unmatchable reaction by national and international powers. We should certainly not dismiss youths’ attraction to jihad as a danger. But we should carefully consider our responses so as not to fan the flames of jihad’s symbolic power.
To illustrate some of the vulnerabilities of marginalised youth, but also to make the point about the instrumental value of jihad to local struggles, I wish to zoom in on a violent Islamist movement gathering steam in northern Mozambique. It goes by a number of names, but is increasingly known as Al Shabaab, despite having dubious if any links to the Somali organisation. Radical preachers moved into the towns of Cabo Delgado northern Mozambique in 2015, and began establishing their own mosques, and also engaging local people – particularly youth – in complex business arrangements. They gave youth loans to start-up businesses of their choice, but later made clear that those they had lent to will have to perform services, including passing on profits for the group to fund attacks, which have rocked Cabo del Gado province for just over a year now. Those who did not make their agreed payments to the group were later targeted in attacks. Those who joined the sect could well have had ideological sympathies too. Islam in Mozambique is predominantly Sufi, but it appears that there is a radical network that has taken sufficient hold in the area to spread its ideology.
However, what is also worth bearing in mind is the established grievance around inequality, lack of opportunity and natural resources in the region. In May 2018, several hundred young men protested against the lack of jobs available to them with the Andarko Liquefied Natural Gas company that had recently begun operating in the area. Their protest was more or less ignored by the authorities, and the outside world might never really know about it. Yet in June 2018, Anadarko’s foreign staff were evacuated because the staff were afraid of attacks from the group commonly called “Al-Shabaab”, and now the area is a matter of national and international concern. There is thus a troubling question here. What will those men protesting a lack of jobs have learned from this incident about political action? For one thing, they will have learned that violence gets attention. And it is also fair to ask whether a violent movement that did not ally itself with the jihadist cause would have gotten half as much attention as this one has now.
The fact that this particular group has lured recruits with promises of start-up capital is also telling. They have found a way to exploit unemployed young people who are frustrated with their prospects. As anyone who has been unemployed for any length of time knows, there is a tremendous temptation to take the first opportunity that comes along, even if it is appears risky. To clarify, we need to be careful about seeing unemployment as a direct path to terrorism – evidently there are huge numbers of young men around the world who are unemployed and still do not engage in violence. But unemployment is a problem, and it is one that has solutions – solutions which international counter-terrorism efforts can support in a development capacity.
Her bio:https://www.iiss.org/people/conflict...eleanor-beevor
She has also provided a pointer to an October 2018 report on Northern Mozambique:https://globalinitiative.net/wp-cont...Report-WEB.pdf
Background reading from May & August 2018
Somehow this May 2018 report appeared today on Twitter, citing a Mozambique-based news website and it appears to be part of the jigsaw to understand the situation. It opens with:
Quote:
A group of 30 to 40 members of the armed gangs that have attacked villages in northern Mozambique received training outside the country by militias with links to terrorist organisations, according to a study presented yesterday in Maputo. “These were the ones that were trained by groups operating in the Great Lakes region of Congo, mainly, and others such as Al-Shabaab in Somalia and Kenya,” said researcher João Pereira, the co-author with Salvador Forquilha and Saide Habibe of the first systematic investigation into the link between recent violence and that type of organisations.
Together, the three authors of the study, “Islamic Radicalisation in Northern Mozambique”, conducted 125 interviews during three visits to Cabo Delgado after the attack on the village of Mocímboa da Praia on October 5, 2017.
Link:https://clubofmozambique.com/news/mi...ambique-study/
I cannot readily find the original report, which may not be in English being written in Mozambique.
Google did provide this August 2018 open source risk profile by a London-based private company:http://www.assayerisk.com/wp-content...sm-article.pdf
Who and what is behind the insurgency? A faceless insurgency
Two contributions. The first from February 2019 which I missed by a academic SME and he starts with:
Quote:
Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province has been held hostage by insurgents for nearly 17 months. Armed attacks, decapitations and the destruction of property have
become common. Many are worried that the violence may escalate and destabilise the country’s economy further. One of the biggest problems is that nobody really knows who the insurgents are. They don’t make public statements, so their motives are unclear.
Link:https://theconversation.com/tracing-...urgency-111563
Then via Twitter a South African newspaper report and as a "taster":
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the people who normally have answers to these kinds of questions are even more confused than before.The bottom line is that no one knows what is going on in northern Mozambique — and that anyone who has attempted to properly investigate has been threatened or arrested.....(Later) nobody has been able to speak to anybody involved.
Link:https://mg.co.za/article/2019-04-25-...-vd04g.twitter
We are here too! IS announcement
First there is an IS announcement that they are active in Mozambique and second a list of articles on this 'small war'. Cut & paste did not work, so read on:https://jihadology.net/2019/06/06/wi...to-mozambique/