Will Mozambique be Torn Apart By Jihad?
Ever since the U.S has gradually withdrawn troops from the Middle East and transitioned towards a foreign policy focused on great power competition, the War on Terror has seen a steep decline in coverage.
Make no mistake about it, Islamist activity is still alive and well. And it’s doing a number in Africa. The case of Mozambique is instructive. On March 25, 2021, militants from an Islamist militia connected to the Islamic State (ISIS) launched attacks on the town of Palma in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, which has a large Muslim population.
The group responsible for the attack was Ahlu Sunna Wal Jammah (ASWJ), which is locally known as al Shabaab. The Mozambican insurgency should not be mistaken with the Somali al Shabaab, a separate organization who is most active in Somalia. The State Department recently designated ASWJ as a franchise of ISIS.
According to the Anadolu Agency, the Al Shabab militia attack killed dozens of Palma residents.The lurid nature of these attacks spurred Portugal, Mozambique’s former colonial overlord, to send special forces to counter the Islamist insurgency.
The Islamist insurgency has afflicted Mozambique since 2017. Due to the magnification of jihadist activity in Mozambique, a number of external actors such as the Russian private military company Wagner Group and even South African special forces have stepped in to stabilize the country. The situation has become so dire in Mozambique that the African Union has called for international action to be taken to address the current crisis.
According to estimates from the US government, 2.300 Mozambican civilians and security force members have perished since the armed insurgency kicked off in 2017.
The Origins of Mozambique’s Jihadist Insurgency
Most of the current insurgency in Mozambique can be traced back to the late 1990s, when a number of prominent religious leaders based in northern Mozambique decided to split from the Islamic Council. The Council was the prevailing Islamic organization in Mozambique. In breaking away from the Council, a new group was established, which would be known as Ansar al-Sunnah ("Supporters of the Way").
According to Evan Centanni and Djordje Djukic of Political Geography Now, “A religious fundamentalist sub-faction of Ansar al-Sunna split off in Cabo Delgado province and began building its own mosques by the late 2000s, trying to create its own social order separate from other Islamic organizations and the government. Its hardline interpretation of Islam was unpopular in the region, but its beliefs were generally not spread through violence. ” Centanni and Djukic observed that “The group was active in several districts of the province, with one of its largest congregations in the coastal town of Mocímboa da Praia.”
Like many Islamist groups, al-Sunnah began embroiling itself in conflicts with its neighbors, who were generally everyday, moderate Muslims, during 2010. After a while, anti-insurgent Muslims demanded that the Mozambican government step in to curb al-Sunnah’s militant action. Eventually, the government got the message and started arresting a number of the group’s leaders. As Centanni and Djukic noted, al-Sunnah leaders were arrested “on charges such as spreading disinformation, refusing to send children to school, and wielding knives as weapons. More arrests followed in 2017.”
The insurgent activity in Mozambique became a magnet of sorts for jihadists outside of the country. Centanni and Djukic explained the level of involvement of foreign jihadists in Mozambique:
Probably as a reaction to the government crackdown, some al-Sunnah members began to militarize in secret, with like-minded fighters probably arriving from Tanzania after being driven out of that country. Immigrants from Somalia and other parts of Africa may also have joined, and the group may have gradually developed communication with like-minded groups in those countries. Meanwhile, many of the group's fighters are thought to have trained outside of Mozambique.
Mozambique is a predominantly Christian nation, with 56% of the population being Christian. Islam dominates the northern region of the country. Overall, Mozambique’s Islamic population comprises roughly 18% of the population.
Jihad Goes to Africa
Broadly speaking, Islamic terrorism is shifting to Africa. Last year, the Global Terror Index reported that ISIS has moved its operations from the Middle East to Africa and to a lesser degree in South Asia. From 2019 to 2020, the amount of deaths ISIS caused in sub-Saharan Africa increased by 67%. "The expansion of ISIS affiliates into sub-Saharan Africa led to a surge in terrorism in many countries in the region," the GTI report revealed.
The GTI report added:
Seven of the 10 countries with the largest increase in terrorism were in sub-Saharan Africa: Burkina Faso, Mozambique, DRC, Mali, Niger, Cameroon and Ethiopia.
According to this report, in 2019, "sub-Saharan Africa recorded the largest number of ISIS-related terrorism deaths at 982, or 41 per cent of the total". The previous US State Department’s coordinator for counter-terrorism, Nathan Sales, also confirmed that both ISIS and al-Qaeda have moved their activity from their principal hubs in Iraq and Syria to East and West Africa.
It’s clear that most of the world is still feeling the second and third order effects of the US’s intervention in Afghanistan. And we’re not just talking about the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The funding of the Mujahideen guerillas during the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) greatly empowered radical jihadists. In securing funds and weapons from both the US and Saudi Arabia, these Islamist radicals were able to build strong terror networks throughout the Middle East and abroad. Groups like Al-Qaeda were birthed in these networks.
While the US government was able to give the Soviets their proverbial “Vietnam” in Afghanistan, the US’s meddling in Afghanistan empowered radical Islamists who would later take out their frustrations with the US on 9/11. Since then, the US has been embroiled in never-ending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have cost the country trillions of dollars and has left thousands of troops dead, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and millions displaced due to these conflicts.
The tragic part is that many American “allies'' and strategic partners such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar have been accused of funding islamist groups like ISIS in the past. The massive oil wealth and new oligarchical class created by the rise of Middle Eastern petrostates have created circumstances where wealthy patrons — private or public — can finance global jihadism and allow it to proliferate at extraordinary rates.
And Africa has become a new flashpoint for conflicts between non-Islamic Africans and the rapidly growing segment of Africa’s muslim population. According to Pew Research, there are over 248 million Muslims in Sub-Saharan Africa alone and those numbers are expected to grow in the next few decades. Such demographic trends bode well for Islamists looking for new foot soldiers to recruit from.
America’s foolish policies from previous decades are beginning to have ripple effects abroad. When a nation’s foreign policy is dictated by the short-term whims of corrupt interest groups, you can expect all sorts of disasters to surface in the long-term.
Societies ruled by elites who only think in the short term like the US will never recognize this. Such arrogance and myopic policymaking has a nasty way of rearing its ugly head in the long-term both domestically and abroad.
Countries throughout Africa will experience sharpened suffering as a result of the US foolish decision to prop up Islamist groups throughout the last 5 decades.