Thread by @WholePicture_

#Thread about #ISIS and #terrorism in #Mozambique:

The rebels in the resource-rich north of the country have carried out their most sensational attack to date with the storming of a small town. The group is difficult to grasp.

nzz.ch/international/…

The Islamist rebel group Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa (ASWJ) has been terrorizing the province of Cabo Delgado in the north of Mozambique for 3 years.

The terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) claimed the attack on Palma on Monday evening. Via social media channels, ISIS claimed that at least 55 people had been killed, including members of “crusader states”.

How close the ties are between the Islamic State and the insurgents in Cabo Delgado, however, is controversial.

The US State Department announced on March 10th that it considered ASWJ to be an IS subsidiary and that it had placed the group on its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

However, many experts believe that the connection is at most very loose - for example in the form that the IS is making training videos available to the rebels in Cabo Delgado.

UN reporters wrote last year that a trainer from a Somali IS branch had traveled to Mozambique to join the ASWJ. Otherwise, no personal ties between the IS and the Mozambican Islamists are known to date.

ASWJ is known locally as al-Shabab (“the youth”) - this is also the name of the Somali terrorist organization associated with al-Qaeda. The Mozambique expert Eric Morier-Genoud sees the origin of al-Shabab in a religious group that formed in 2007 in the south of Cabo Delgado.

The sect later grew into a movement that gathered frustrated young men, set up their own houses of prayer, and challenged traditional religious authorities - many of the insurgents include former petty traders, fishermen and farmers.

ASWJ draws from a full reservoir of young Muslims in Cabo Delgado, the region is the poorest in Mozambique.

Over 500 attacks since early 2020
ASWJ took up arms in October 2017 after authorities increasingly cracked down on the movement.

Small groups of rebels initially attacked police stations or villages in remote areas, but over time the group's methods became more sophisticated and brutal; it obtained better weapons and the number of its members grew rapidly.

ASWJ is now said to have several thousand members. The number of attacks increased in 2020, and according to the conflict database ACLED, ASWJ has carried out over 500 attacks since the beginning of 2020.

The Mozambican security forces are unable to get a grip on the Islamist uprising, although the government brought in foreign security companies to support the Mozambican troops.

The South African Dyck Advisory Group carried out evacuations with helicopters during the attack on Palma. In a report released in early March, Amnesty International accused the security firm and Mozambican government forces of committing war crimes against civilians.

In March, the United States sent a dozen members of a special unit to Mozambique on a two-month training mission.

The humanitarian situation has meanwhile assumed dramatic proportions - around 2,600 people have been killed since October 2017 and almost 700,000 have been displaced, some of them to neighboring Tanzania.

The terror campaign in Cabo Delgado also threatens the country's economic future. There are huge offshore natural gas reserves in the province, which the Mozambican government hopes will give the poor country a new economic boost.

The French energy company Total is pursuing a 20 billion dollar project in Cabo Delgado - according to the Financial Times, it is the largest foreign investment project in all of Africa. The Total complex is ten kilometers from Palma, the scene of the attack in recent days.

In January, Total had already withdrawn the majority of the workforce from Cabo Delgado and stopped work at Palma. They should have been resumed these days - but the attack, which also affected full-time employees, put an end to the plans for the time being.