Biden Administration to Spend $14M a Year Rebuilding Mozambique Province

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday plans to provide $14 million annually over the next decade to the Mozambique province of Cabo Delgado in an effort to rebuild the region after it was overrun by Islamic terrorists in recent months, the state-run Mozambique News Agency (AIM) reported Thursday.

“The funding was announced by the US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, at a Maputo press conference on Tuesday [June 14], held shortly after [Mozambique] President Filipe Nyusi had granted her an audience,” according to AIM.

“This sum [$14 million per year] will allow the United States government to work on the reconstruction of Cabo Delgado and the rest of the country, and in training young people for employment, and thus discouraging them from being recruited by the terrorists,” Nuland said on Tuesday as quoted by AIM.

“The fund has already been approved by the United States Congress, and the agreement could be signed within the next two months,” Nuland added.

Nuland personally confirmed her meeting with President Nyusi in a statement posted by her official Twitter account on June 15.

“Honored to meet with Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi to discuss U.S. support for security, stabilization, prosperity, health, and peace in Mozambique,” she wrote.

Cabo Delgado is a coastal province located in Mozambique’s north that was besieged by jihadist terrorists in March 2021. The Islamist insurgency forced the French energy giant Total to halt all operations at its natural gas processing plant near the Cabo Delgado resort town of Palma in April 2021, effectively shutting down the regional economy. Total’s natural gas liquefaction plant near Palma accounted for the single largest source of foreign investment in Africa ($20 billion) before it was forced to cease production.

The March 2021 jihadist raid on Palma was perpetrated by hundreds of terrorists allied to a group known as “Al-Shabaab,” which is the colloquial name for a Mozambique affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Mozambique’s “Al-Shabaab” organization is distinct from Somalia’s “Al-Shabaab” terror group, which is loyal to al-Qaeda.

Mozambique’s “Al-Shabaab” stormed Palma — which housed mostly foreign workers of Total — on March 24, 2021. The Islamic State jihadis subsequently laid siege to the community from March 24 to March 29, 2021, taking control of local military barracks, homes, businesses, and banks. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the raid on Palma online via its propaganda outlet, the Amaq News Agency, on March 29, 2021. The terror organization said the operation “resulted in the deaths of 55 Mozambican forces and Christians including contractors from outside the country.”