Mozambique | ISIS says it is taking part in the Insurgency Against the Army

The organization of the Islamic State (IS) said on Tuesday that it has participated in recent fighting with the army in Mozambique , the scene of a wave of violence attributed to Islamic . An assertion denied on Wednesday by the country's security forces.

Since the end of 2017, the extreme north of Mozambique, which is predominantly Muslim and rich in gas, has been rife with a bloody insurgency attributed to radical Islamists who advocate the strict application of Sharia law . More than 200 people were killed, including with machetes, or burned alive in village raids and ambushes on the roads.

Operations to "ensure permanent security"

The identity and motivations of the attackers, who have never claimed their actions, remain an enigma. But in a statement translated Tuesday night by the SITE Intelligence Group , which specializes in monitoring Islamist websites, the IS group claimed, for the first time, to operate in Mozambique. "Caliphate soldiers have been able to repel an attack by the Mozambican Crusader army in the village of Metubi" in northern Mozambique on Monday, Daesh said. "They confronted them with a variety of weapons, killing and wounding a number of them (...). Mujahideen seized weapons, ammunition and rockets as booty, "he added.

The Mozambican police have denied these claims. "The information (of the IS) is not true," police spokesman Orlando Mudumane said at a press briefing in Maputo on Wednesday. "The security forces are positioned throughout the territory" Mozambican "to conduct several operations to ensure continuous security," he was content to say.

Inconsistencies in Daesh's speech

The army and the police have clearly muscled their presence in the province of Cabo Delgado (north) , theater attacks attributed to Islamists. For the month of May alone, the mysterious group referred to by the local population as "al-shabab" - "young people" in Arabic - killed at least 40 people, wounded dozens of others and burned hundreds of people. houses. The information in northern Mozambique is very difficult to obtain, especially given the repression of journalists in the region by the Mozambican authorities.

"The organization of ISIS is not in Mozambique, it's just propaganda, but they may have links in Mozambique," said an expert on condition of anonymity. In his statement, the IS makes a gross geographical error, he also noted. The group claims that the village of Metubi where the clashes occurred is in the Mocimboa region. Metubi is located in the district of Quissanga, about 100 kilometers from Mocimboa.

An increased presence on the Internet to compensate for the disappearance of the "caliphate"

The date of publication of the communiqué is not innocuous, added the expert. It coincides with Eid, marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan . "By the time they have lost their state, their army, their administration, the IS is trying to show that it has links with groups from around the world. They always have a website and they try to say "We do not exist anymore, but now we are everywhere". But basically, it's purely propaganda, "said the expert.

Since the disappearance of its self-proclaimed "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq, the EI group is trying to compensate with an increased presence on the Internet , according to experts. In Mozambique, the wave of violence worries in any case the authorities of Maputo and large gas groups who began to settle in Cabo Delgado to exploit offshore deposits very promising. More than 5,000 billion m3 of gas have been discovered off its coast.