Thread by @Telegraph

🔴In recent weeks Islamists stormed the town of Palma in Mozambique leaving decapitated bodies scattered across the town.

But Mozambique’s insurgency has been growing in power and violence for 4 years.

@TelegraphWorld investigated, thread ~ 🧵👇

telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/0…

🇲🇿The siege of Palma was a real life nightmare:

📌Armed terrorists took over the hotel town
📌 Law and order collapsed
📌 Civilians were left to fend for themselves
📌 Masked psychopaths slaughtered with impunity

Observers were shocked…

🔴 “The brutality is unbelievable,” said Lionel Dyck, whose private security firm was hired by the Mozambican government in 2020.

"What they do to the people they capture and kill I have never seen anywhere in Africa,” Dyck continued
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/0…

🔴 Who are the terrorists? And what do they want?

The insurgents in Mozambique are often referred to simply as “mysterious".

More ambitious descriptions are “Islamist” or “Islamic State linked”.

🇺🇸 The US designated the movement a terrorist organisation on March 10

🔙 The insurgency is usually dated to 5 October 2017.

30 youths armed with machetes descended on the police station, slaughtered occupants, and urged the locals to follow sharia law
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/0…

📚 Researchers believe the movement began at least 10 years earlier.

With the emergence of an enigmatic sect that clashed with both the established local Sufis and the Gulf-funded Wahabbi Muslim leaders in the area

The origins of the sect have been traced back to preacher, Sualehe Rafayel.

The group set up mosques across Cabo Delgado and gained a reputation for:
📌 Rejecting secular state
📌 Encouraging children be kept out of school
📌Following unorthodox religious practices

For a while, the sect seemed content to withdraw from what they viewed as an impious society rather than confront it.

⏭️ But over the years, tensions with established Muslim leaders and the state grew following attempts to repress the sect
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/0…

👮In 2016, followers of the group clashed with police during a protest against the sale of alcohol.

📈Around that time, it extended access to manpower, money and weapons by allying with artisanal miners, illicit traders and organised crime groups

♦️ Exploitation of economic grievances and existing corruption has allowed the sect to rapidly expand.

The sect have steadily grown their arsenal of weapons through raids on police and military.

🌍 The insurgents have also expanded their international links

✈️ There is evidence that some members have been trained in eastern Congo or Somalia.

Intelligence says South African extremists have travelled to join the group.

In 2019, the sect declared allegiance to Islamic State
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/0…

❌ There is no evidence of links with IS's core movement in Syria and Iraq.

The black banner of IS is most likely a "flag of convenience" meant to intimidate enemies.

Their area of operations is also isolated from other Islamist uprisings in Somalia or the Sahel

About a 700,000 people have been internally displaced by the conflict.

📌 Food insecurity has surged
📌 Army-escorted supply convoys have come under attack
📌Shortage of potable water has fuelled a cholera outbreak

🔴 What is to be done?

A week and a half after the initial assault on Palma, the area is still not fully secured.

Thousands of refugees have streamed into Pemba or across the border into Tanzania
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/0…

🇲🇿 Mozambique president in February offered amnesty to Islamist insurgents who surrender.

The Mozambican army has improved but not yet enough to smoothly take over air support operations.

Fighting is itself only a sticking plaster. Dyck predicts the war will end with talking

🗓️ “It will go on. Most insurgencies, if you look at history, take 15 years from start to finish, and after 15 years guess who is in the chair?” said Dyck.

"Right now there has to be a solution to suppress the dissidents"
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/0…

🔴 "You need a concerted effort to clear an area, control it, and put in schools, hospitals, police stations, all those things you need. And hold them - don’t just put them there and desert them,” says Dyck
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/0…