Rwanda Helps Mozambique Free Key Islamic State Stronghold

Mozambique’s military, with assistance from Rwandan security forces, successfully recaptured a Cabo Delgado port city from Islamic State-allied terrorists on Sunday.

“The port city of Mocímboa da Praia, a major stronghold of the insurgency for more than two years has been captured by Rwandan and Mozambican security forces,” the Rwanda Defense Force wrote in a statement posted to Twitter on August 8.

The joint Mozambique-Rwanda task force has regained control of “public and private buildings in Mocímboa da Praia including local government offices, the port, the airport, the hospital, markets and restaurants,” Mozambican colonel Omar Saranga told reporters at a press conference on Sunday.

Mocímboa da Praia is a strategic port city in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, home to Africa’s largest liquefied natural gas projects. The port previously serviced a liquified natural gas project site located 50 miles north in the resort city of Palma. The French energy firm Total owned and managed the $20 billion gas site until suspending its operation this year following a deadly attack on Palma by Islamic State terrorists.

A Mozambican affiliate of Islamic State known locally as Shabaab, or “the youth” in Arabic, claimed responsibility for the March 24-29 siege of Palma. The Islamic State’s Central Africa Province (ISCAP) formally named Mozambique’s Shabaab group “Ahl al-Sunnah wa al Jamma’ah (ASWJ)” in 2019 in a sign that it conferred the jihadists membership to ISCAP.

Rwanda deployed 1,000 troops to Mozambique on July 9 to assist the nation in its latest campaign against Islamic State-affiliated terrorists in Cabo Delgado province. The French government financed Rwanda’s military aid mission to Mozambique, according to Mozambican media reports.

Islamic State-allied fighters seized Mocímboa da Praia on August 12, 2020. The Mozambican Navy had attempted to fight off the terrorists for days before finally running out of ammunition and capitulating. Agence France-Presse described Mozambique as a “poor, donor-dependent southern African country” enduring “its worst-ever financial crisis” at the time of Mocímboa da Praia’s capture last summer. Mozambique’s military was indeed too weak to make any significant progress toward freeing Mocímboa da Praia from Islamic State fighters until the French-funded Rwandan task force arrived in Cabo Delgado last month.

Mozambique’s neighbors have watched Islamic State’s advances across the country’s north with trepidation since the jihadis launched an insurgency in Cabo Delgado in 2017.

“Tanzania has said it is launching an offensive against the jihadists in forests on the border with Mozambique,” the BBC reported in August 2020.