So in light of "Al-Shabaab's" (ISCAP-Mozambique) attack on Kitaya - just across the the Rovuma river in southern Tanzania - here's a quick thread on jihadist militancy in Tanzania, its ties to the Islamic State, and its role in Mozambique's growing insurgency
Salafism has had a longstanding presence in Tanzania, really gaining prominence in the 1980s as students returned from studying in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere on scholarships from BAKWATA, the government-affiliated Muslim council. 
Rejecting BAKWATA's corruption and perceived ineffectiveness - or simply not getting the jobs they expected - many turned to Ansar al-Sunnah, a loosely inter-connected network of private charities and pressure groups that sought to "purify" Tanzanian Islam
Some Ansar al-Sunnah groups became quite extreme, like Sheikh Barahiyan's Ansar Muslim Youth Council in Tanga, which advocated the complete rejection of the secular government's legitimacy; individuals associated with AMYC even recruited for Somalia's Al-Shabaab
Tanga became such a hotspot that a gunfight erupted with an alleged jihadist group in the Amboni caves in February 2015; in May 2016 a group in Tanga calling itself "Ahl al-Khaf" (People of the Cave) pledged allegiance to Islamic State, releasing photos:
Around the same time, a group calling itself Jabhat East Africa declared its split from Al Shabaab in Somalia, decrying the crackdown on pro-IS members, which disproportionately fell on non-Somalis - especially East Africans; that said, little emerged beyond media releases
An insurgency also emerged in Rufiji district, reaching its height in summer 2017: more than 30 police officers, ruling CCM party officials & community leaders were murdered, before a ruthless crackdown ended the killings - and sent some militants fleeing into northern Mozambique
Mozambique's own insurgency - which became ISCAP - would begin only months later, and Tanzanian members have always held critical leadership roles and comprised a large proportion of the group's fighters
Indeed, Kitaya is not the first time that Mozambique's jihadist insurgency has launched raids across the Rovuma river: on November 12, 2019, militants killed six farmers near Ngongo, before fleeing back across the river news24.com/news24/africa/…
This is all to say that Mozambique's insurgents launching attacks into Tanzania is not new, that many members and leaders are themselves Tanzanian, and that many have likely had their eyes on their home country for quite a while: the difference now is that they can pull it off
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