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Mozambique’s Interior Minister Pascoal Ronda said today that the terrorist groups operating in Cabo Delgado have new leadership and have adopted new strategies, following their expulsion from their bases and the death of their former leaders.
“The adoption of the new ‘modus operandi’ by terrorists demonstrates that there is new leadership within the group,” Pascoal Ronda said in parliament in response to questions from the opposition about the new wave of armed attacks in the province of Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique.
“The majority of the terrorist leaders are found in the districts of Macomia and Quissanga, with a highlight on Óscar, Dardai, Zubair, Mane, Sheik, Amisse and Machudee,” Minister Ronda said.
The new leaders of the insurgents replaced Ibn Omar, Abu Kital, Ali Mahando and Amurane Adamo, killed in 2023 by the Mozambican Defence and Security Forces (FDS) and contingents from member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Rwanda who are involved in fighting the rebels in Cabo Delgado, the minister added.
Pascoal Ronda said that the terrorists were expelled from their existing bases in the northern districts of Cabo Delgado, and dispersed into small groups, creating new camps and concentrating their attacks in southern districts such as Ancuabe, Chiúre and Quissanga.
“In these places, terrorists have carried out robberies, ambushes on the FDS, murder of citizens, looting of food products, destruction of schools, churches and homes, kidnappings and recruitment of new members,” Ronda declared.
The recent actions of the insurgents, he continued, have created a new wave of as many as 60,000 displaced individuals.
The interior minister said that government forces had responded to new rebel incursions, halting the spread of armed violence.
Ronda advocated greater investment in combating terrorism and radicalism, through equipping the FDS and through social and economic development, aiming to “eliminate the roots” of the insurgency.
Minister Ronda also called for international cooperation in the fight against terrorism, pointing out that it is a complex phenomenon with a trans-national character.
At the end of February, the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group claimed responsibility for 27 attacks in that same month, in villages in the district of Chiùre, Cabo Delgado, in which it claims 70 people died, in addition to 500 churches, houses, and public buildings in the district being destroyed.
The province of Cabo Delgado has been facing an armed insurgency for six years, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State. After a slight calm in 2023, these attacks have multiplied in recent weeks, creating around 100,000 displaced people in February alone, in addition to a trail of destruction, death and lost families.
This insurgency has led to a military response since July 2021, with the support of Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating districts close to gas projects, but new waves of attacks have emerged in the south of the region.
Since 2017, the conflict has displaced more than a million people, according to United Nations agencies, and around four thousand deaths, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).
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