February At A Glance

Vital Stats

• ACLED recorded 34 organized political violence events in Cabo Delgado province in February, resulting in 77 reported fatalities

• Reported fatalities were highest in Nangade district, where insurgents repeatedly carried out attacks on civilians and clashed with Nangade communal militias 

• Other events took place in Macomia, Ibo, Palma, Melaleuca, Mueda, Ancuabe, and Pemba districts in Cabo Delgado

Vital Trends

• Insurgent activity continued in Nangade and Macomia districts, while Palma remained under the control of Mozambican and Rwandan forces

• In Macomia, insurgents targeted positions of the Mozambican security and defense forces, to lethal effect

• President Nyusi continued a diplomatic offensive to drum up support for fighting the insurgency

In This Report

• Tanzania frees long-standing detainees facing terror charges, and takes in more refugees, in moves to mollify local communities and international partners

• An analysis of the Cabo Delgado insurgency’s links to international jihadi movements

• How the Mozambique government responded to the insurgency’s expansion to Niassa

• A run-down of President Nyusi’s recent attempts to win international financial support for Rwandan and SADC military assistance

February Situation Summary

The insurgency in northern Mozambique largely stood still in February, with no great advances either by the insurgency or the alliance of government forces combating it. But it won’t have felt like that to the communities in the two most-affected districts.

The districts protected by Rwandan troops continue to be largely peaceful, but, with a much smaller force spread over a much larger area, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) mission in Mozambique, and the Mozambican forces they are supporting, are failing to protect civilians or even themselves in Macomia and Nangade districts.

The stretch of the N380 highway between Macomia town and the village of Chai was particularly targeted in February, something which continued into March. The area is largely empty of civilians, a situation the government hoped to have reversed by now, but insurgents have been attacking military positions there, killing and mutilating at least two members of Mozambique’s security and defense forces.

An operation by Mozambican and Rwandan troops in early February, to clear insurgents out of western Palma district, appears to have triggered an increase of attacks on villages in Nangade, as insurgents moved westwards out of Palma. In contrast to the joint force with the Rwandans in Palma, the SADC forces in Nangade — mainly Tanzanians, with some from Lesotho — appear to have largely stood by as villages were attacked and civilians killed. Villages have again emptied of civilians, who have fled to the main village of the district — which has so far remained safe, though undoubtedly vulnerable.

Neither the SADC nor the Rwandan missions gained any new clarity on how they will be funded going forward, despite two trips by Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi to Brussels, amid hopes that the EU would provide financial assistance for one or both of the deployments.

Tanzania Releases Prisoners Held on Terror Charges

By Peter Bofin, Cabo Ligado

At least 160 people who had been remanded on terrorism charges, some for as long as seven years, were released from detention in February. On 23 February, one of the largest reported refugee crossings took place just one week before a “Joint Protection Dialogue” between the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the government of Tanzania’s ministries of foreign affairs and home affairs. Both issues paint a picture of the country’s response to the conflict in Cabo Delgado, and its impact on Tanzania. President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s approach to political engagement, both domestic and international, is more open than that of her predecessor, but political progress on both fronts will come slowly. 

The prisoner releases indicate the scale of the terrorist threat perceived by Tanzania and provide insight into the processes leading to the releases. Between 23 February and 3 March, 160 people, nearly all men, were released. A further 20 were released in Morogoro, but immediately re-arrested. Inconsistent reporting and an absence of any official statements mean the actual basis on which they were released cannot be determined clearly. Some had charges dropped and some were released on binding orders as investigations continued, while the basis of the release of others was not made clear. The lack of extensive coverage, after reports of the release of the first four detainees, illustrates the nervousness felt by mainstream media in dealing with terrorism-related issues. After reports on the first releases in Mtwara on 23 February, and later Dar es Salaam, most reports of the releases were to be found on social media.

The releases come after two years of campaigning and lobbying by loose networks of Muslim activists on behalf of detainees, some of whom have been awaiting trial since 2013. Their total number is not known, but it is estimated as being in the hundreds. The releases give an insight into how the state brings Islamist-oriented activists into mainstream political processes at the national and the local level.

In June 2020, the Shura ya Maimamu, or Advisory Council of Imams, produced a position paper for that year’s general election, which called for the release of 148 people detained on terrorism charges between 2013 and 2017, whose cases had yet to come to trial. The following month Hizb Ut Tahrir launched a campaign for the release of four of its members detained in Mtwara. In August 2020, five months after coming into office, President Samia herself called for the release of those who have been detained on remand for years while their cases are investigated. 

Shura ya Maimamu is associated with Sheikh Ponda Issa Ponda, who has a history of conflict with the state and the National Muslim Council (known by its Kiswahili acronym Bakwata), and has been arrested numerous times. He claims to have met with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in January, stating that the DPP told him that all those held on long remand were due for release. Ponda had also last year undertaken a series of prison visits and meetings with prisoners' relatives. Internal DPP processes continued in February, according to Mtwara’s resident magistrate-in-charge, and other channels were employed, too. In Morogoro, a sheikh heading up the Kamati ya Maafa ya Mkoa, or Regional Emergencies Committee, the body supporting Muslims detained on terrorism charges in Morogoro, claims to have been in direct contact with the DPP on the issue. 

These civil society processes have recorded a significant win. There is no evidence that other prisoners awaiting trial have benefited in this way. Given the numbers involved, they will go some way to building bridges with affected communities, though elsewhere disappearances have continued, and continue to be highlighted. 

Building bridges with the international community with regard to Tanzania’s refugee policy will be a similarly slow affair, despite the High Level Protection Dialogue held from 1 to 2 March with UNHCR. Tanzania’s relations with UNHCR have been strained since a 2019 agreement between Burundi and Tanzania to forcibly return refugees who are in camps in Kigoma region.

Relations have been further strained with the policy of refoulement of refugees from the conflict in Cabo Delgado. In April 2021, a group of UN human rights experts alleged that refugees from Burundi were subject to enforced disappearances, torture, and forced return. The following month, UNHCR expressed concern over Tanzania pushing refugees fleeing fighting in Cabo Delgado back across the Mozambique border. This followed a UNHCR estimate in April that up to 1,000 refugees who fled the attack on Palma had been subject to refoulement. 

Since then, refugee flows have continued, despite military intervention by Rwandan and  SADC forces. As in Kigoma, Tanzania is reluctant to see permanent refugee settlements develop, seeing them as a security risk. Whether that policy will contribute to increasingly suspicious views of SADC troops — in Nangade district in particular — remains to be seen. 

Transnational Jihadism and Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

By Liazzat J. K. Bonate, lead researcher on Cabo Delgado at Norway’s Christian Michelsen Institute, and lecturer in African History at the University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago

The violent insurgency in the coastal province of Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique began in October 2017, when some young Muslims stormed police stations in the city of Mocímboa da Praia. In 2019, the Islamic State (IS) began claiming responsibility for attacks in Cabo Delgado, and posted a video of the insurgents taking an oath of allegiance to the leader of IS. The conflict appears to be a resistance against the Mozambican state, and an irregular insurgency in a classical sense, with prolonged political-military activity through the use of irregular forces and illegal political organizations. Actions such as guerrilla warfare, terrorism, propaganda, clandestine recruitment, and international networking are designed to weaken the state’s control and its legitimacy. But the allegiance to IS also suggests that the insurgency is linked to transnational jihadism.

Transnational jihadism is a type of violent activism that is inherently “glocal” (global/local), because, although jihadists oppose nation states on the basis of local grievances, they also challenge the international order of Western hegemony. Transnational jihadism has three key elements: 1) it is an ideology based on a radical interpretation of the fundamental sources of Islam; 2) it seizes on local grievances, especially against the state, to trigger an insurgency or channel the existing resistance to its own benefit; and 3) it also resists and rejects the Western-dominated global order. All three of these elements appear to be present in Cabo Delgado, but detailed research is still lacking. The affiliation of the insurgents with IS indicates that they met the criteria expected by that organization. As Candland, Finck, and Ingram describe, the IS propaganda organs showed that they were accepted and Cabo Delgado was formally incorporated into IS’s Central African Province. 

Transnational groups like IS emerged from Islamist ideologies, which attempt to articulate Islam into a political order. Islamism has roots in Salafism and in a mixture of Wahhabi doctrine and the interpretations of Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), who emphasised takfir, and violent jihad. The former is the judgement of other Muslims as non-believers to be excluded from Islam for inadequate adherence to a rigid interpretation of Islam. The war in Afghanistan from 1978 to 1992 brought new ideologues to the fore, such as Ayman Al Zawahiri, a student of Qutb. Al Zawahiri insisted that the “far enemy” — the United States — was equal to the “near enemy,” its local puppets, constituting a system which Al Zawahiri called “veiled colonialism.” The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 gave rise to Al Qaeda in Iraq, which adopted brutal tactics and an extreme position on dealing with non-believers, and which ultimately led to the emergence of IS. 

African jihadists have also participated in these global discussions and transnational wars. The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) of Algeria gave birth to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in 2001, which soon moved into Mali, Niger, and Chad. Somalia’s Harakat Al Shabaab was established in 2006 and the group declared allegiance to Al Qaeda in 2012 — the same year in which the jihadist group Al Hijra from Kenya did so. Boko Haram emerged in 2002 and 2003 in Nigeria and pledged allegiance to IS in 2015. It later split into two, with one wing becoming the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) in 2016. As Candland, Finck, and Ingram note, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) of Uganda launched in 1995 and became affiliated with IS in 2019. 

While global activism changed the nature and scale of local protests, Africa's jihadist movements remain deeply rooted in specific local socio-political settings and fights. To successfully expand in a given region, transnational jihadism requires ideological protagonists, and an enabling and fertile environment for exploring emotional entry points. A landmark early report into the insurgency by Habibe, Forquilha, and Pereira suggested it may have been initiated by Mozambican Salafis, who were influenced by northern Mozambicans schooled in Islamist ideology and transnational jihadism at Islamic universities abroad. They channeled resistance to the older generation of Salafis, and expressed dissatisfaction with the socio-economic situation of the country, in particular in the north. But subsequent studies on the matter provide no clear empirical evidence to support this hypothesis, nor do they unveil insurgents’ discourses and narratives.

It is also not clear whether Cabo Delgado insurgents had been in contact with regional or global jihadist movements before 2017 with the intention of starting an armed revolt. This is certainly a possibility, given that the northern coast of Mozambique has been part of the Swahili and the Indian Ocean commercial and cultural networks for centuries. However, radical jihadist movements were already present in Somalia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Comoros, and Tanzania by the 1990s, and violent jihad did not emerge in Mozambique before 2017. As Luca Raineri explains, the abuses perpetrated by state authorities —  including allegations of corruption, systematic discrimination, arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial executions, etc. —  are the main drivers of jihadism.  

The Cabo Delgado insurgency started in a very specific region and time; it emerged in the gas-producing regions of Mocímboa da Praia, and Afungi in Palma, amid expectations of an economic boom resulting from the construction of a gas processing complex there. In many oil and gas producing societies, violent extremism is generated by real or perceived grievances, such as discrimination, marginalization, injustice, repression, and other abuses by the state and security apparatus, which have exacerbated pre-existing grievances. This is also noticeable in Tanzania, where — similar to Cabo Delgado — there are high rates of unemployment and poverty in Muslim coastal areas. The Muslim communities of both regions likely influence each other’s position regarding the postcolonial state, neoliberalism, and transnational jihadism. 

Furthermore, establishing the oil and gas industry in Cabo Delgado has been surrounded by controversy because of alleged patronage and corruption and because of growing inequality. This negative popular perception was further compounded by the belief that most jobs in the new industry appeared to go to foreigners and Mozambicans from the south of the country, rather than young local Muslims, whose hopes for employment and a better future had been dashed. This served as emotional, fertile ground for an insurgency directed not only against the Mozambican state and its allies, but also against the global hegemony of the West — embodied by the extractive companies. 

Islamist ideology, in its many forms, remains attractive to some circles of the resistance, who seize, transform and reinterpret it. Even if IS disappears, jihadist ideology will live on and be carried forward by other Islamists. Military assaults to eliminate transnational jihadism,  therefore, might not defeat the jihadists. In the case of Cabo Delgado, only the future will reveal the true impact of the continuing military intervention.

Government Response to Niassa Attacks

By Tomas Queface, Cabo Ligado

In late November 2021, armed violence in Cabo Delgado spread to neighboring Niassa province, confirming the fears of the Mozambican police, SADC, and warnings from analysts, of a possible insurgent expansion into that province. The attacks took place in November and December 2021, centered on Mecula district. How the government responded to the expansion of the insurgency in Niassa, and the security and humanitarian challenges that emerged from this, is a question that deserves detailed analysis. 

Although insurgent attacks had been confined to Cabo Delgado province, researchers have noted that Niassa and Nampula provinces — in addition to being fertile environments for insurgent recruitment — share similar social dynamics with Cabo Delgado. These dynamics, which encourage insurgent growth and expansion, include organized crime networks, porous borders (in Niassa and Cabo Delgado), high poverty rates, and authoritarian government rule. For the Mozambican police, the expansion of the insurgency was seen from a strategic point of view, as Niassa and Cabo Delgado share the same border. Meanwhile, at the same time as the authorities were looking at strengthening security as a way to contain attacks on Cabo Delgado province, the Northern Integrated Development Agency (ADIN) was created in March 2020 to address the socio-economic challenges of the north, with a focus on Nampula, Cabo Delgado, and Niassa provinces. 

The arrival of foreign troops from Rwanda and SADC changed the dynamics of the conflict. The Rwandans expelled the insurgents from Palma and Mocímboa da Praia. The insurgents dispersed in small groups to the south towards Macomia and to the west towards Nangade. SADC forces, who were operating in Macomia and Nangade, noted the flight of insurgents south of the Messalo River, particularly into Niassa province. As expected, insurgents began a series of attacks in Niassa, first in the area of Gomba — 150km from the district headquarters of Mecula — on 25 November, with an attack on a vehicle in the Niassa Special Reserve. Two days later, the insurgents attacked a police post in Naulala, 60km from Mecula village. Houses were destroyed and goods and medicines were looted. The next day, they returned to Naulala where they continued looting goods and medicines. On 30 November, insurgents attacked a Mozambican security forces truck 20km from Mecula. Insurgent attacks in Niassa continued until 27 December with the attack on the village of Alassima, during which insurgents killed five people, kidnapped others, and burned houses. 

The series of attacks by insurgents was enough to convince Mozambique's defense minister of their presence in Niassa. The national police commander, however, had confirmed in December the presence of insurgents in Niassa, claiming that they entered through the district of Mavago, west of Meluco. In the same statement, the commander announced the death of an insurgent leader in Niassa, Maulana Ali Cassimo — a native of the province. Prior to his radicalization and decision to join the insurgency, Maulana worked as a civil servant in Meluco district, Niassa. The response of the authorities to the insurgent attacks in Niassa was to immediately deploy large numbers of police and army reinforcements. Questions about whether Mozambique had enough officers and soldiers to provide security in the area, as well as the failure to adequately respond to the insurgency in Cabo Delgado, raised the prospect of foreign troops being deployed in the area, particularly from Rwanda, but these were denied by the authorities. 

The president of Mozambique has been very vocal about the insurgent attacks in Niassa. In his year-end speech to the nation on 16 December 2021, President Filipe Nyusi, said the attacks on Niassa were a result of pressure from joint and combined Rwandan and SADC forces in Cabo Delgado, and that the militants would naturally be on the run, to Niassa or even Tanzania to the north. In the same speech, Nyusi appealed to the population not to panic and gave assurances that the security forces would be on the offensive pursuing the insurgents. On his trip to Mecula, the epicenter of the attacks in Niassa, the Mozambican president asked the population not to abandon the areas under attack because the defense and security forces were there to provide protection. And, according to Nyusi, it was due to these security forces that the spread and intensification of insurgent attacks in Niassa were prevented. 

One of the major effects of the insurgent activity in Niassa was the displacement of people in the region. At least 3,700 internally displaced people, mostly from Naulala and surrounding areas, arrived in the main town of Mecula. Others headed to the districts of Senga, Mecanhelas, Marrupa, and to the provincial capital, Lichinga. The depopulation of several villages continued until January 2022. The government, through the National Institute for Disaster Management, accommodated the displaced people in temporary locations.

The lack of food support and shelter, Nyusi's call for displaced people to return, and the need to resume their activities in their areas of origin caused many displaced people to leave the accommodation centers and head for their homes in early February 2022. The decision to return was also reinforced by the fact that there have been no attacks in Mecula for more than a month. The provincial government even promised support in the process of rebuilding the homes of the displaced populations in some villages that suffered attacks. But civilians have complained about a lack of transparency in the reconstruction process. ADIN opened its first office in Niassa in February 2022 to remedy social inequality and to promote socio-economic development. To what extent ADIN will make a short-term impact on the ground, and to what extent the Mozambican defense forces will guarantee protection to Niassa, will depend on the dynamics of the conflict in the neighboring Cabo Delgado province and the insurgents' ability to threaten the northern part of the country. 

Nyusi Seeks to Shore up Cabo Delgado Support

By Piers Pigou, Cabo Ligado

February saw Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi traveling widely in a bid to secure further support and funding for operations against the insurgency in Cabo Delgado. He met regularly with African allies and ended the month with the prospect of further EU support appearing positive. 

His February travels came after a January in which Maputo was involved in major security discussions with continental partners, with allies committing to extending support for counter-terrorism efforts in northern Mozambique. These discussions included the SADC summit, the Rwanda-Mozambique security summit in Kigali, and meetings with the AU’s Peace and Security Council. Nyusi also hosted Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan and TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné. Both visits focused on developments in the security situation in Cabo Delgado.

This set the scene for a busy month of travel in February for Nyusi, who was intent on exploring additional sources of funding for counterinsurgency operations and reassuring investors and partners over the current approach to the northern insurgency. South African President and chairperson of SADC’s Organ for Politics, Defence and Security Cyril Ramaphosa on 3 February visited troops from the SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) for the first time since their deployment. Joining Heroes Day commemorations in Mueda, Ramaphosa emphasized South Africa’s long-standing ties to Mozambique, but made little public reference to the actual conflict. 

Nyusi was in Addis Ababa for the Heads of State and Government session on 4 February and 5 February, which affirmed AU solidarity with Mozambique’s campaign against violent extremism, and commended both SADC and Rwanda for their support. The AU also called on the continent and international community to support Maputo to “effectively counter terrorism.” No further detail was included in the AU’s summit document, Decisions, Declarations, Resolution and Motion. 

After the summit in Addis Ababa, Nyusi flew directly to Brussels for a three-day visit, where he held discussions with EU leaders, including the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell and European Council President Charles Michel. Among the topics under discussion, Nyusi made a specific request for the EU to go beyond the support it provides through its existing military training mission program, to support the security deployments of Rwanda and SADC in Cabo Delgado. With AU endorsement and the European Peace Facility (EPF) offering greater flexibility on funding options, some support to Rwanda can be expected, although it is unlikely to satisfy Kigali and Maputo’s requirements. It is likely to be only non-lethal support. As raised in an edition of Cabo Ligado weekly last month, SADC is yet to apply for EPF funding and is instead applying for more limited support through the EU’s Emergency Response Fund. The EU has emphasized it retains an integrated approach to its support, which incorporates development and humanitarian support. Beyond military training, the EU has approved €428 million ($474.5 million) of funding to cover cooperation for the first four years of the 2021-2027 EU-Mozambique cooperation cycle.

It is unclear whether any Rwandan or SADC officials joined Nyusi to help make the case for supporting both missions. Nyusi returned home via Kigali, where he met with President Paul Kagame, discussed progress on operations in Cabo Delgado, and presumably reported on progress from the Brussels trip. The EU representative in Rwanda Nicola Bellomo reportedly confirmed that the EU is in discussions with Rwanda “to determine needed support to its interventions in Mozambique.”

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa was in Beira on 12 February on a working visit to Mozambique, which was focused on deepening economic relations. Zimbabwe’s precise role in supporting the SAMIM initiative remains unclear. During the visit, Mnangagwa announced that Zimbabwe would donate 1,000 tonnes of grain to Cabo Delgado as part of a humanitarian drive to support people living there.

While sources have confirmed that Zimbabwe Defence Forces have given limited training support to forces fighting the insurgency, exactly what this means remains unclear. Zimbabwe has not deployed as part of the SAMIM force in Cabo Delgado and it is unclear if and how this training is linked to other training missions, such as the EU Training Mission in Mozambique and the United States’ Joint Combined Exchange Training program.

Nyusi was back in Europe a few days later on 17 and 18 February, this time with other African leaders, to attend the sixth EU-Africa summit convened in Brussels. The meeting failed to deliver concrete outcomes, yet covered a raft of topics, including “peace, security and governance.” The summit’s final declaration included an undertaking to build AU-EU cooperation that will help “combat instability, radicalization, violent extremism and terrorism.” The final declaration also included a “commitment to foster our cooperation through support for adequate training, capacity building and equipment, to strengthen and scale up autonomous peace operations of African defense and security forces, including through EU missions and assistance measures, as well as support for law-enforcement capacity-building.” 

The prospect of additional EU support is gaining further traction. Michel praised the joint efforts on Cabo Delgado as “an example of EU-Africa security cooperation,” and French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed support for the idea of the EU helping to underwrite peacekeeping efforts. Even if agreed, it would be months before any concrete support comes to fruition.