Terror threat morphs in Mozambique

[Valin]

Deutsche Welle

The insurgency in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province is spreading to neighboring regions, according to a new study. This comes despite the intervention of SADC and Rwandan troops.

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Mozambique's al-Shabab militia, whose name comes from the Arabic for youth and which has no relation to Somalia's al-Shabab terrorist group, has been carrying out brutal attacks in the nation's most northern province, Cabo Delgado, since 2017. 

The Islamic militants have now taken control of entire areas of Cabo Delgado and have expanded their operations inside and outside of Mozambique, according to a new joint study by the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Crime and the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Germany.

This comes despite the deployment of troops from Rwanda and the Southern African regional bloc, SADC, to help Mozambique's military fight the armed uprising, Julian Rademeyer, one of the study's lead authors, told DW.

The study, "Insurgency, Illicit Markets and Corruption: The Cabo Delgado Conflict and Its Regional Implications" was published on Thursday.

Surge in attacks

In the past week alone, extremists have attacked at least eight villages in Cabo Delgado, completely burning down five of them on the border to Tanzania, the Catholic Denis Hurley Peace Institute told Germany's Catholic news agency, KNA.

(Snip)