Terror is on SA’s doorstep, warns terrorism expert

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has called for “the fight to go on” and southern Africa was ignoring the message at its own peril as it was only a matter of time before oil and gas companies were targeted, a terrorism expert has told The Citizen.

The closest, and biggest, threat comes from SA’s eastern neighbour, Mozambique in the far northeast province of Cabo Delgado. Combine religious extremism with political instability, crushing poverty, and locals being moved off their land to make way for a liquid natural gas project that will see billions of dollars leaving the country, and it’s a powder keg waiting to blow.

“The one concern one has is the open borders, and with that supply streams. That cannot be ignored; migration management is dismally failing when it comes to Mozambique and South Africa,” said international terrorism expert Jasmine Opperman.

However, global terrorist group Islamic State appeared to have hitched itself to Ahlu Sunnah wa Jamaah (al-Sunna) and this was a cause for concern, Opperman noted. The Islamic State claimed two attacks in Mozambique through its weekly al-Nabaa magazine last week, noted Opperman.

“Soldiers of the Caliphate attacked a Crusader army post in the Christian village of Quiterajo, in Cabo Delgado area, and killed many elements of the post … took an array of weapons and ammunition,” was one claim, while the other was: “Soldiers of the Caliphate were able to attack another post of the Crusader army, in Cobre village, in the Cabo Delgado area, and killed many … burned the post completely with what it contained of vehicles and tanks and took an array of weapons and ammunition as spoils.”

Hammered on its home ground in the Middle East by coalition forces, IS (read al-Qaeda, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Isil), IS has been looking to broaden its reach.

The jihadist militant group follows the fundamentalist Salafi doctrine of Sunni Islam which preaches an unadulterated form of Islam, and researcher Quintan Wiktorowicz in his paper Anatomy of the Salafi Movement noted three splinter groups: “purists, politicos, and jihadis”.

With its roots in Kenya as a religious sect, al-Sunna followers moved to Cabo Delgo after its leader Kenyan cleric Aboud Rogo Mohammed was killed by Kenyan security forces for allegedly supporting Somalia’s al-Shabaab, according to Turkish news channel TRT World.

“The members of the group allegedly advocate for the establishment of a Sharia state,” TRT World reported.

“The concern is if IS has a presence in the region, it’s already being emphasised by IS Central Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and now Mozambique,” Opperman said.

Adding fuel to the fire was Mozambique LNG, a subsidiary of Anadarko – recently purchased by Occidental Petroleum Corporation for $55 billion – moving people off their land.

“The project’s health and safety standards, guided by international health and safety guidelines and industry good practice, indicate that the nature and scale of construction activities will not allow for communities to remain and continue their subsistence livelihoods in close proximity to the LNG processing plant,” Mozambique LNG stated.

The attacks by al-Sunna, which according to Opperman share many of IS’s ideals and goals, began in at least 2017 and appear to have caught the eye of IS, although there was little to indicate al-Sunnah’s acknowledgement of IS’s “affiliate” programme.

“We have seen a significant shift in the nature of the attacks – pangas, severe brutality – and some were wondering if we were seeing extremist influences at play in different cells,” Opperman said.

“There was one attack on an Anadarkou convoy. The shift in targets is that of the military in the region. It shows how brazen cells are becoming both in target and execution. On September 10 we saw for the first time three targets attacked at once. The Mozambique denialist attitude is not helping.

“On 29 April 2019, Islamic State’s official al-Furqan channel released a video message by its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, titled In the Hospitality of Amir al-Mu’minin,” Opperman wrote for Daily Maverick.

“The video is of paramount importance in that it redefines the role of al-Baghdadi, but also announces the Islamic State’s renewed strategy of an ‘expanded jihad’.”

Opperman noted there were up to 10 cells operating in the Cabo Delgo province.

“With government forces totally inadequately equipped to deal with them, continued attacks by the cells – irrespective if the cells are operated by al-Sunna or not – the conditions do allow the IS fertile feeding ground to move in and use this as an expansion opportunity, which it is already doing by claiming credit for attacks in the region,” said Opperman.

Al-Sunnah has made its presence felt in the province, with numerous beheadings and attacks on the LNG project, government forces, and villagers to make them toe the al-Sunna line.

As to what the official stance on what South Africa’s position on al-Sunna is, the State Security Agency has remained mum after questions were sent.

Reuters reported earlier this month that jihadists had killed “at least 300 civilians over the past two years, often by beheading them”.

“Dozens of villages have been wiped off the map and thousands of people displaced. Local media reported around 20 deaths in August,” Reuters said. And al-Sunna seemingly has no plans to back down, sending press-ganged youth to Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan and Saudi Arabia for military and ideological training.

INFO:

Debt profile: Mozambique

Mozambique’s debt is currently in distress, and total public debt is on an unsustainable path. A large portion of the Mozambican debt is foreign-currency dominated; hence, the debt dynamics are susceptible to fiscal policy slippages, tighter financing conditions and external exchange rate shocks. There is a call for prudent fiscal policy to rein in public debt.

The government should direct resources from debt to capital projects that have the ability to pay back and also towards productive sectors of the economy, contrary to funding recurrent expenditure. There has been a significant rise in domestic debt, constituting a large share of the total public debt.

Hence, the government should formulate and implement prudent domestic debt management strategies to mitigate the effects of rising debt on the economy. – www.africaportal.org

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