Blood harvest 2020: Year of brutal terrorism in Mozambique

Nahla Abdel Moneim

The Republic of Mozambique in southeast Africa witnessed an escalation in terrorist attacks and security instability during the year 2020, as ISIS managed to expand its local base in the country by recruiting a greater number of elements, whether through intimidation or recruitment, in addition to major armed operations that threatened sources of national income for Maputo.

Most of the terrorist organization’s operations were concentrated in the Cabo Delgado province in the northeast of the country, targeting mainly the region’s gas sector and its workers, as well as coastal tourism sites. This necessitated a continental intervention to discuss developments in the crisis, and the possibility of forming international military forces to confront the organization if it escalated.

Major operations and brutal attacks

Jasmin Oberman, a researcher of extremist organizations in Africa, described the situation in Mozambique as harsh and that the spread of ISIS in the northern region of Cabo Delgau is reaching the point of control, but the attacks launched by the organization in the region are characterized by extreme brutality.

On March 23, 2020, the organization carried out an attack on the Mocimboa da Praia region in the north, which left dozens of dead, and on April 21, ISIS killed at least 52 young men in the city of Xitaxi in Muidumbe in the north for their refusal to obey the organization’s orders and join its ranks, in scenes of slaughter that forced thousands to flee. The Guardian reported that ISIS has caused the displacement of 200,000 people from the northern region of the country.

In August 2020, ISIS took control of the strategic port in the north in the Mocimboa d Praia region, which is the depth of its control. Thus, in September 2020, it was able to control the coastal islands in the city of Palma through an attack by sea boats, approaching the tourist islands once again. This is considered a major threat to the eastern coast of Africa, which suffers mainly from the control of the al-Qaeda terrorist group Al-Shabaab on the coast of Somalia.

In a major and brutal massacre, ISIS killed at least 50 people on November 9, 2020, as armed elements took them to a soccer stadium in a village in northern Cabo Delgao and beheaded them, justifying their action by cooperating with the government authorities against the organization, and their homes were also burned.

Terrorist propaganda and African solutions

The year 2020 witnessed an increase in propaganda for ISIS, as its presence in Mozambique was linked to the media machine that seeks to spread terror in the souls of citizens and claim its control over the region, and it urged terrorist elements to carry out more attacks and bring in new elements to its ranks, which was evident in the organization’s announcement of its establishment in the region through a video broadcast on Telegram in June 2018, where heavily armed elements appeared pledging allegiance to killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and calling on citizens to join the organization.

Since then, the organization has been keen to spread uneasy propaganda about its control over the region, as it claimed on April 1 that it had carried out in a short time about 13 attacks, calling on elements to escalate operations. In July 2020, the organization was keen to demand its elements to attack mining sites and exploration sites for natural gas in Cabo Delgau.

Here lies the danger of the ISIS presence in this region, as there are large reserves of crude oil that the organization seeks to eliminate, which threatens foreign investment, and it also seeks to control of the northern tourist coasts.

For its part, the European Union stated in October 2020 that ISIS attacks in Mozambique had killed about 1,500 people and displaced 250,000 people, which is a major challenge to African security.

For his part, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi is trying to form regional meetings to discuss the file of cooperation against ISIS, especially with his statement on May 20, 2020, that countries should join hands to help his country defeat the organization, because his forces have been trying since 2017 without a real result.

During a meeting held in the capital, Maputo, on December 15, 2020, African leaders, under the auspices of the Southern African Development Group (SADC), discussed the possibility of a military intervention to undermine ISIS’s presence.