The extremist group Islamic State carried out a total of 384 attacks in Mozambique in 2021, killing 1,127 civilians, Mozambican armed forces and combatants, according to a U.S. State Department report released Tuesday.
According to the 2021 report of the Counter-Terrorism Office of the US Diplomacy on terrorist activities around the world, the year under review was marked by the capture of Palma, a village in the province of Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country, by the Islamic State in Mozambique (EI-M) in March of that year, and the response of the joint forces of the Mozambican and Rwandan armed forces, which “recaptured significant amounts of territory” under the control of the terrorist group.
On 24 March 2021, IS-M attacked the village of Palma, in the northeast of the country, “displacing thousands as it expanded its control over the province”. Afungi Peninsula, the report notes.
However, from July of the same year, the deployment of troops belonging to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Defense Forces of Rwanda (RDF) mission in Mozambique “helped the Defense and Security Forces (FDS) to reclaim territory , including Palma and Mocímboa da Praia, a strategic port city that EI-M had taken in 2020”.
This response also enabled the Mozambican government to announce the “capture of 245 terror suspects and elimination of 200 terrorists in combat” on November 30 of that year.
On the other hand, the spread of the terror group is behind several attacks on villages, including in two districts of Niassa province, bordering Cabo Delgado, the foreign ministry said.
The report estimates that EI-M has about 800 active operatives in northern Mozambique and that the expanded designation of EI-M used in the report includes entities as diverse as Ansar al-Sunna’s armed groups; Tradition Helpers; Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jamaa or al-Shabaab in Mozambique, among others.
The report details the main terrorist incidents that took place in 2021, starting with the attack and seizure of Palma on March 24 of that year, which led to the displacement of 50,000 people.
On 12 September, IS-M ambushed a convoy of Rwandan forces in Mocímboa da Praia district, killing four Rwandan soldiers and wounding six others. On October 2, IS-M abducted seven women from Nacate village in Macomia district, south of Mocimboa da. beach.
In November and December, the extremist group moved from Cabo Delgado province to Niassa province for the first time, where it “attacked several villages in the districts of Mecula and Marrupa,” according to the text of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, equivalent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs. .
“On December 15, EI-M beheaded a Christian minister in Macomia district and ordered his wife to hand over his head to the Mozambican defense and security forces”describes the report.
The report notes the counter-terrorism legislative changes introduced by the Mozambican government, namely to the criminal justice framework for terrorism within borders, but does not recognize “significant changes in 2021” in the capacity to implement the new legal framework. as well as emphasized that “border security remained a challenge for Mozambique, with no significant changes” during the year under review.
The fight against the financing of terrorism deserves a particularly negative note from the US State Department, following the identification of “significant technical compliance gaps” and the lack of a National Risk Assessment (NRA), which assesses country risks on the “grey list” of countries publicly cited as inadequate in preventing and combating improper financial measures.
The Mozambican government “began to address these shortcomings by drafting new laws on domestic terrorism, money laundering and terrorism financing, as well as an NRA, though all had yet to be finalized at the end of the year,” notes up the report.
The province of Cabo Delgado has been facing an armed insurgency for five years, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.
The insurgency has led to a military response with the support of Rwanda and SADC since July 2021, liberating districts adjacent to the gas projects, but new waves of attacks have emerged in the south of the region and in neighboring Nampula province.
The conflict has already displaced a million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and killed about 4,000 people, according to the ACLED conflict registry project.
Source: DN
