Mozambique (catch all)

[davidbfpo]

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:

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:

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:

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:

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/

[davidbfpo]

A very short BBC report based on AFP:

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:

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

[davidbfpo]

Via a South African newspaper website an article from Mozambique itself, referring to a study (see next paragraph) and the article has more background facts - so worth a read.
Link:https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/arti...mpression=true

Link to the study, which is translated into English and uses the title:

Al Shabaab Mozambique are marginalized youth that create instability for illicit trade of wood, ivory and rubies of their leaders

Link:http://www.verdade.co.mz/tema-de-fundo/35/65831

[davidbfpo]

A South African newspaper article that asks what is going on. Id'd via Twitter where author, Simon Allison points out:

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:

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

[davidbfpo]

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:

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.

[davidbfpo]

An update on the situation by a local, though not from Mozambique:https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/arti...-cabo-delgado/

[davidbfpo]

A new article from The Wilson Centre (in the USA).

A few passages:

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/