Can ISIS Carve Out a State in Africa?
On Mozambique, regional deadlock, and how extremists exploit local grievances
I’ve never been a fan of articles that leave the reader feeling like they don’t know what’s happening in the world. But this piece might be one of those. With our attention focused on Covid-19 and the folly of American politics, we can be forgiven for missing all the explosive news out of Mozambique. It’s not like Mozambique and its impoverished northern provinces are regularly in the news in the first place. Yet something is happening there and it has the potential to ripple across the region and beyond.
Exploiting grievance
Here’s the background. After five days of heavy fighting this month, ISIS-linked insurgents occupied the port town of Mocimboa da Praia in Mozambique’s northernmost province. The town is a critical link to the country’s growing natural gas sector, worth roughly $60 billion. It is also considered integral to a $23 billion natural gas project run by the French energy giant Total.
According to reports from the province, insurgents have attacked the city several times since 2017. In the latest round of attacks, they reportedly sank a Mozambican military vessel and held their own against helicopter gunships flown by pilots of the South African private military company Dyck Advisory Group, which was contracted by the government. Insurgency is nothing new in Mozambique’s complicated civil war but the growing sophistication of the fighters and their weapons has created valuable opportunities for ISIS on the ground.
Local grievances in a long-neglected corner of the country are being co-opted to transform the area into the next ISIS hotspot. In typical ISIS fashion, the group joins a local insurgency to add publicity and give a little aid. It then builds its brand off the global publicity of spectacular events, just as it did in the takeover of Mocimboa da Praia. Yet, ISIS’s focus on Southern Africa can’t be easily dismissed.
While South Africa has been mostly immune from ISIS blowback, recent events have raised the prospect of trouble from ISIS’s second wave in Africa. In July, Durban police raided a kidnapping ring that led to the arrest of five foreigners linked to an ISIS cell responsible for attacks on South African mosques in 2018. The capture of suspected ISIS insurgents inside the country amplified warnings from the extremist group that South Africa should not directly intervene on the ground in Mozambique.
After the port takeover in Mocimboa da Praia, ISIS warned South Africa that Europe and the United States were attempting to persuade the country to start a war, and such a decision would lead ISIS to activate its soldiers against Pretoria. The degree to which ISIS is capable of making good on its threats is unclear. The primary roadblock to intervention is not ISIS’s threats of violence, but rather the regional diplomatic struggles and the complexity of Mozambique’s fragile internal politics.
Regional deadlock
Enter the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional organization with 16 member countries focused on economic and security co-operation. This is where it gets a little confusing but bear with me. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has faced increasing domestic and international pressure to use the SADC to pressure Zimbabwe over its human rights violations. Such pressure would likely dissuade Zimbabwe from joining any regional coalition against ISIS in the region.
Yet, despite its internal problems, Zimbabwe has said it would participate in regional action to stabilize Mozambique (with what resources is anyone’s guess). Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi has repeatedly refused to support regional intervention while also holding back critical intelligence from neighbors and allies. He has barred journalists from the conflict zone amid widespread reports of human rights abuses by the military.
These actions underscore just how out of its depth Nyusi’s government is in handling the ISIS threat and address the root problem of inequality and marginalization driving the insurgency. In a desperate attempt to save face and protect natural gas agreements with foreign companies, Nyusi is trying to strike bilateral deals with Zimbabwe to drive a wedge in a unified SADC or African Union intervention.
The situation is, in a word, untenable. Given the sophistication of the latest assault on Mocimboa da Praia and the depth of grievance with the Mozambican government, ISIS is on the verge of entrenching itself in Southern Africa. If ISIS is allowed to create a statelet in the area, the effects will be disastrous for Mozambique and the region as a whole.
The Mozambique attack comes as ISIS is growing its footprint in West Africa and clashing with governments and security forces across the Sahel. Despite setbacks in the Middle East, the group’s ideology is flourishing in ignored pockets of Africa. While this might seem a world away, the reality is that this fire could blaze out of control if neglected.
Some things I read recently
Thoughtful interview about the housing crisis in South Africa with writer William Shoki
Thirty years ago this week, the population of Earth was given official notification that it faced a threat of unprecedented magnitude
The new middle East: welcome to the end of liberal history
The jihadi gift shop in Istanbul
On Albert Memmi, a self-described “Jewish Arab” writer from Tunisia
A final thought in the form of a quote or book passage
Napoleon made it his habit to delay responding to the mail. His secretary was instructed to wait three weeks before opening any correspondence. When he finally did hear what was in a letter, Napoleon loved to note how many supposedly “important” issues had simply resolved themselves and no longer required a reply.
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