Most notably minerals and oil: Reasons for escalation of terrorist operations in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique

Mouaz Mohammad

Terrorist operations have grown in the Cabo Delgado district of the Republic of Mozambique, in southeastern Africa, during the last period by Islamic rebels and ISIS operatives.

Cabo Delgado is located in the northeast of the country, on the border with Tanzania, with a Muslim majority, and is considered the least developed in the country, and its social and economic conditions are a factor in fueling the rebellion, especially with high unemployment and poverty rates, and the ineffectiveness of government services.

Killed and destroyed

The newspaper “Carta de Mozambique” reported that the northern areas of Cabo Delgado district witnessed terrorist operations by rebels who killed and destroyed private and public facilities, in addition to gunmen entering villages and kidnapping women.

According to the newspaper, ISIS claimed responsibility for a previous attack that killed 16 soldiers, and other reports say that the organization adopted 26 attacks, leaving behind a group of mutilated bodies of men, women and children, next to the burned and abandoned villages.

In the same context, a report of “News 24” stated that “Cabo Delgado” has recently witnessed continuous attacks by a terrorist organization with possible links with “ISIS”, which left behind it without end.

According to the website, in his report issued on December 18, in 2019, there were 600 deaths in Mozambique, while in December 2019 alone, 17 attacks occurred.

Wagner elements

Although Russian Wagner elements have been in northern Mozambique to fight local rebels, since late September 2019, they have not been able to engage with Islamist rebels in the oil-rich province of Cabo Delgado.

According to a CNN report released in late November 2019, it appears that those elements who were sent to Mozambique were subjected to human casualties, and two contractors were killed in battles with the rebels, citing unconfirmed reports of more deaths.

In addition, the network reported, citing its sources, that the Russian Wagner elements are not well equipped to fight in the dense jungle, and their relationship is tense with the country’s army.

According to Agence France-Presse, 4 people were killed in an attack in northern Mozambique, attributed to residents of Islamists who have been terrorizing in the region two years ago, by ambushing a truck near the village of Momo in the Cabo Delgado region, and the truck driver was killed, 3 passengers and others were injured.

Several days earlier, 10 people were killed in the same area, the extremists had not claimed any of the attacks, and ISIS had claimed some of them.

Extremist groups

In October 2019, a report was issued by the American magazine Foreign Policy in which it spoke about the emergence of a close relationship between the terrorist organization ISIS and what is known as the “Ahl al-Sunna Group”.

According to the magazine, Mozambique has many extremist groups whose name and leader are unknown, and whose affiliation is not known as “Al Qaeda” or “ISIS”. Especially since the local and international media use several names to refer to the same organization in the country, they are known as Sunnis, Jama’at, Ansar al-Sunnah.

On September 18, 2019, the RAND Corporation for American Political Research mentioned, in a research paper, the reasons that might cause Mozambique to host the second branch of the Nigerian Boko Haram terrorist group, noting that there are wells for oil and gas minerals in the north of the country, which makes the region an icon for internal conflict and infighting.

The province of Cabo Delgado is the largest economic center in Mozambique, because it contains large oil and gas fields, which are run by the American Anadarko company and the Italian Eni company, which the terrorists see as a foreign intervention against their country. Therefore, the equipment and workers of the two companies are targeted with terrorist operations from time to time. etc.

Threat before birthdays

According to the Observatory of Takfir Fatwas and Extremist Views of the Egyptian Fatwa House, in a report of December 24, 2019, 38 terrorist operations were monitored, targeting 11 countries around the world carried out by 9 terrorist groups, in addition to the operations that were recorded against an unknown, in which 218 people were killed and injured, indicating a noticeable surge in operations before Christmas.

The Observatory stated that Mozambique witnessed one terrorist operation, stressing that West and Central Africa is witnessing an escalation in the frequency of terrorist operations, which threatens the escalation of violence, which may support its exposure to attacks on birthdays.