MOZAMBIQUE ATTACK REVEALS ISIS TIES TO TERRORISM ACROSS AFRICA
▶ Analysts tell Thomas Harding about covert communication between leaders and insurgents
ISIS attacks in Mozambique are probably being coordinated with the terrorist group’s core leadership as part of an expanding campaign in Africa, security analysts told The National.
They believe an organised propaganda campaign is under way across the continent to amplify the extremist group’s standing and raise support.
The latest ISIS attack in Mozambique happened last month in Palma. Extremists seized the town and killed dozens of civilians, including western contractors.
The group’s supporters around the world celebrated the attack before the seizure of the town was announced on its global network, a report on the group’s communications network showed.
The assault prompted countries in southern African and western powers to take action to stop the spread of extremism across the continent.
Last Friday, Southern African Development Community member states, a group that includes Mozambique, held talks about how to tackle extremist violence in the country. The South African Navy, Angolan Air Force and Tanzanian troops could form part of a co-ordinated defence policy.
Six presidents from community member states held emergency talks in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, two weeks after the Palma attack, which forced thousands to flee their homes.
The meeting “affirmed that such heinous attacks cannot be allowed to continue without a proportionate regional response”, the community said.
There is growing evidence that the core leadership of ISIS is focused on Mozambique. ExTrac, an intelligence resource set up by counter-extremism expert Dr Charlie Winter and network scientist Abdullah Alrhmoun, detected long-term communication between ISIS and affiliates in Africa.
“There is some sort of formal covert communication between this particular network in Mozambique and ISIS as a global movement,” said Dr Winter, a senior research fellow at the international centre for the study of radicalisation at King’s College London.
“Both parties clearly benefit from the propaganda value and the amplification of activities.”
Some security experts believe that for the past five months, there has been a “strategic silence” from ISIS’s network in Mozambique under the orders of the group’s central leadership, to avoid attracting undue attention as it planned operations.
“The only reports that emerged were pared back and restrained, so it’s been unusual that since November until March there was total silence from Mozambique, with just one claim of civilians killed and few details on the attack itself,” Dr Winter said.
But after the Palma attack on March 24, there was “incontrovertible evidence” of communication between the insurgent network in Mozambique and ISIS commanders, he said.
The “critical question” is to what extent the group’s global network – and its leader Amir Al Mawla – were involved in the Mozambique campaign, as well as insurgencies in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, Dr Winter said.
It appears ISIS shifted its focus from the Middle East to Africa and in particular Mali, in the Sahel region, where in December, 300 British troops arrived to join 15,000 UN peacekeepers. The force was sent to stabilise the country as ISIS seeks to control the Sahel region in what has become a protracted conflict.
It is a grim portent for Mozambique. Southern Africa was relatively stable until insurgents started carrying out attacks in Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique. The latest was in Palma.
Insurgents seized the town, which is near the site of a multibillion-dollar liquefied natural gas project considered crucial to the country’s economy.
The Amarula Palma hotel, a site popular with westerners, was besieged and guests wrote a message asking for help on the grounds of the hotel. Police said they found a dozen beheaded bodies in the streets.
Authorities said dozens were killed during the assault and the UN said more than 11,000 people were forced to flee. Total, the French energy company behind the liquefied natural gas project, withdrew its personnel from the site.
Al Shabab, the extremist group linked to ISIS that is behind the attacks in Cabo Delgado, has so far launched more than 800 raids on towns and villages. More than 2,700 people have been killed and more than 670,000 displaced.
Dr Winter set out to find conclusive proof of a structural relationship between insurgents in Mozambique and ISIS commanders and said research highlighted a “triangle of influence” between Somalia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Various incidents point towards a flow of individuals, weapons and expertise and ideology between those three places,” he said.
He said it was debatable whether the insurgents were pursuing ISIS’s global extremist agenda or political aims in
Mozambique that “have been exaggerated”. But he said there was evidence of some level of co-ordination with the ISIS leadership.
One clear outcome from the Palma attack is that much more attention is being given to Africa from governments worldwide. They have been galvanised by evidence of the advanced propaganda capabilities of ISIS despite its defeat in Iraq and Syria two years ago.
“ISIS relies on its network of affiliates to bolster that perception of momentum and victory that’s so important to its brand,” Dr Winter said.
But some analysts said insurgents were operating “under an ISIS flag of convenience” to justify their own ends.
“It provides an excellent propaganda opportunity for ISIS central but the majority of what’s happening in northern Mozambique is driven by local grievances,” said Dr Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at the Chatham House think tank in London.
He said the insurgency was unlikely to spread throughout
Mozambique because the distance between Palma and Maputo was the “same as Paris is to Moscow”.
He suggested the Palma assault was a “reward for its followers” who carried out mass looting of food, ammunition and cash.
Dr Vines said there was evidence that fighters in Mozambique were given military training by extremists in eastern Congo, particularly in the use of mortars, which were effective in the Palma attack. Fighters had gone from using machetes in 2017 to accurate mortar fire within four years – demonstrating ISIS’s progress in Mozambique, he said.
Dr Vine said that insurgents were probably boosted by the arrival of fighters from Tanzania and potentially Somalia, increasing their numbers to the low thousands.
While the Mozambique government relied largely on foreign military contractors, it now appears to be turning to western countries for help with counter-insurgency operations. The US, UK and Portugal are providing military training.
Dr Vines said there was a race to train Mozambique’s security forces before ISIS could claim further victories by drawing in more recruits and supporters.
“As this conflict worsens, it draws in foreign fighters and the dynamics get more complex,” he said.
Co-operation within the Southern African Development Community “will be critical to ensuring peace in Mozambique”, said Jasmine Opperman, a former intelligence analyst in South Africa.
She is concerned about the increased skills of extremists.
“What has happened in Mozambique is merely another indication of how sophisticated and brazen the insurgents have become,” she said.
“This must not be disregarded and underplayed, as it’s not only a risk to Mozambique but also to the region.”
The turning point in the conflict was the insurgency’s alliance with the ISIS leadership in 2017, two years before the extremists were defeated in Iraq and Syria, said Dr Benjamin Petrini, an economic analyst of conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
He said the alliance “mushroomed across the African continent” and, once established, the terrorists were difficult to eliminate.
“How many examples do we have of a successful, complete eradication of these extremist movements? Not many,” Dr Petrini said.
“They have demonstrated that once they’re able to establish roots in a territory they create extensive links with local communities. So I do see Mozambique as another hot spot of extremism for the long term.”
He said fighting would continue until problems such as poverty were resolved.
“This has all the elements of a protracted conflict within a state that has very little penetration and very loose state institutions,” he said.
ISIS relies on its network of affiliates to bolster the perception of momentum and victory that’s so important to its brand DR CHARLIE WINTER ExTrac founder