Militant attacks hit Mozambique as Total readies to resume gas project
MAPUTO: A series of attacks in northern Mozambique this month point to a resurgence of violence by Daesh-linked militants as energy giant TotalEnergies prepares to resume a major gas project, analysts say.
The group terrorized northern Mozambique for years before brazenly vowing in 2020 to turn the northern gas-rich Cabo Delgado province into a caliphate.
TotalEnergies paused a multi-billion-dollar liquefied natural gas project there in 2021 following a wave of bloody raids that forced more than a million people to flee.
The insurgency was pushed to the background by a months-long unrest that followed elections in October.
But there has been a new wave of violence. In May, the Islamists attacked two military installations, claiming to kill 11 soldiers in the first and 10 in the second.
A security expert confirmed the first attack and put the toll at 17. There was no comment from the Mozambican security forces.
There were two dramatic strikes earlier – a raid on a wildlife reserve in the neighboring Niassa province late April killed at least two rangers, while an ambush in Cabo Delgado claimed the lives of three Rwandan soldiers.
Also unusual was a thwarted attack on a Russian oceanographic vessel in early May that the crew said in a distress message was launched by 'pirates,' according to local media.
'Clearly there is a cause and effect because some actions correspond exactly to important announcements in the gas area,' said Fernando Lima, a researcher with the Cabo Ligado conflict observatory which monitors violence in Mozambique, referring to the $4.7 billion funding approved in mid-March by the US Export-Import Bank for the long-delayed gas project.
'The insurgents are seeing more vehicles passing by with white project managers,' said Jean-Marc Balencie of the French-based political and security risk group Attika Analysis.
'There's more visible activity in the region and that's an incentive for attacks.'
Conflict tracker ACLED recorded at least 80 attacks in the first four months of the year.
The uptick was partly due to the end of the rainy season which meant roads were once again passable, it said.
TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said last Friday that the security situation had 'greatly improved' although there were 'sporadic incidents.'
The attack that stalled the TotalEnergies project in 2021 occurred in the port town of Palma and lasted several days, sending thousands fleeing into the forest.
ACLED estimated that more than 800 civilians and combatants were killed while independent journalist Alex Perry reported after an investigation that more than 1,400 were dead or missing.
Rwandan forces deployed alongside the Mozambique military soon afterwards, their number increasing to around 5,000, based on Rwandan military statements.
The concentration of forces in Cabo Delgado 'allows insurgents to easily conduct operations in Niassa province,' said a Mozambican military officer on condition of anonymity.
The raid on the tourist wildlife lodge straddling Cabo Delgado and Niassa provinces was for 'propaganda effect,' said Lima, as it grabbed more international media attention than hits on local villages that claim the lives of locals.
Strikes on civilians, with several cases of decapitation reported, often fall under the radar because of the remoteness of the impoverished region and official silence.
'More than 25,000 people have been displaced in Mozambique within a few weeks,' the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said last week.
This was in addition to the 1.3 million the UN said in November had been displaced since the conflict began in 2017.
'The renewed intensity of the conflict affects regions previously considered rather stable,' said UNHCR's Mozambique representative Xavier Creach.
In Niassa, for example, about 2,085 people fled on foot after an attack on Mbamba village late April where women reported witnessing beheadings.
More than 6,000 people have died in the conflict since it erupted, according to Acled.
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Fatherland or death, we shall win.'BIR 15 Cobra 2 is the name of a special intervention unit created by Burkina Faso's ruler, Ibrahim Traore, to combat extremists. 'Fatherland or death' is the motto of pro-government videos were removed from X and put behind a paywall on Telegram. Burkina Faso's army condemned the videos' 'macabre acts' and described them as 'unbearable images of rare cruelty.' The army said it was working to identify those responsible, adding that it 'distances itself from these inhumane practices.' It was not clear whether anyone has been posts shared by alleged Wagner-affiliated channels include images of what appear to be mutilated corpses and beheaded, castrated and dismembered bodies of people, including ones described as extremist fighters, often accompanied with mocking commentary. One post shows two white men in military attire with what appears to be a human roasting on a spit, with the caption: 'The meat you hunt always tastes better,' along with an emoji of a Russian is hard to know at what scale cannibalism might occur in the context of warfare in the Sahel, and actual cases are 'likely rare,' said Danny Hoffman, chair in international studies at the University of 'the real force of these stories comes from the fascination and fear they create,' Hoffman said of the videos, with the digital age making rumors of violence even more widespread and effective.'Whether it is Wagner or local fighters or political leaders, being associated with cannibalism or ritual killings or mutilations is being associated with an extreme form of power,' he of the graphic posts have been removed. Other content was moved behind a told the AP in a statement: 'Content that encourages violence is explicitly forbidden by Telegram's terms of service and is removed whenever discovered. 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