Mozambique: Islamic State captures key port, establishes its first outpost in southern Africa, imposes Sharia

In this situation it’s about the oil. Isis will always target oil rich areas to fund their Jihad in whatever country they target.

They are in America also.

The sucessful coup in Mali, West Africa, will have ramifications far beyond its borders by threatening to further destabilize the region ....The President of Mali stepped down.

“The Mozambican defense minister, Jaime Neto, said that the extremists had infiltrated parts of the port and “attacked the town from the inside out, causing destruction, looting, and the murder of defenseless citizens”

Are you sure hes not talking about Portland?

Isis’s warning to South Africa President not to get involved or there’d be repercussions is concerning because keep in mind Russia sent troops there and finally pulled out because their casualties were so great.

Almost 20% of Mozambique’s 32 million population are Muslims. The loss of the town is a severe blow to impoverished Mozambique. It is in the gas-rich northern province of Cabo Delgado where energy giants, such as the French-owned Total, are planning to develop offshore gas projects worth up to $60 billion (R1 trillion), according to Al Jazeera.

Mozambique could really use an immediate 20% drop in its population.

Cabo Delgado province

I am very much in favor of former patron nations handling problems like these. Send in the Portuguese military.

Mercenaries from Russia and South Africa have also been in combat for the government, said the report.

When President Filipe Nyusi wanted help last year to tackle a jihadist insurgency in northern Mozambique, various private military firms were keen to oblige. Mr Nyusi chose Russia's Wagner Group, which vowed to make short work of the rebels. But after a bunch of its men were killed, it pulled out, humiliated.

In its place, the government has hired a firm with a very different pedigree: the Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), led by a South Africa-based colonel, Lionel Dyck. Mr Dyck served in the army of Rhodesia, the white-run state that became Zimbabwe at independence in 1980. In the 1970s, when Mr Dyck wore its uniform, the Rhodesian army used to attack Mozambique and the Zimbabwean guerrilla bases that Mr Nyusi's Frelimo party was hosting. Times change, as do alliances.

Despite a UN treaty banning mercenaries, their day is far from over...

Shortly after Mr Nyusi met Mr Putin in Moscow last year, Wagner was awarded the contract for Mozambique, which has rich gasfields and is developing Africa's largest energy project.

Wagner has been hired to prop up a number of shaky African regimes. In Sudan it tried to sustain the blood-drenched dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir. He was ousted last year after big protests. In 2018 hundreds of Wagner men arrived in the Central African Republic to guard diamond mines, train the army and provide bodyguards for an embattled president, Faustin-Archange Touadè€. In Guinea, where Rusal, a Russian aluminium giant, has a big stake, Wagner has cosied up to President Alpha CondÈ, who has bloodily faced down protests against a new constitution that lets him have a third term in office.

In Libya, despite a UN arms embargo, Wagner is reported to have deployed 800-1,200 operatives in support of a rebel general, Khalifar Haftar, who has been trying to defeat the UN-recognised government. On May 26th America's military command for Africa said Russia had flown modern fighter jets to Libya to give air support to Wagner. It released satellite photos purporting to show the jets at al-Jufra airbase. It seems, however, that Wagner has been failing in Libya too, with hundreds of its men being forced to retreat.

Private military firms typically say they fill gaps in security that would otherwise lead to chaos. In the Central African Republic, for example, France withdrew almost all of its peacekeeping troops in late 2016, leaving a UN force and a small European training mission that struggled to keep order. Wagner has hardly fared better. In north-eastern Nigeria in 2015 a South African firm called STTEP (Specialised Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection), had some success in bolstering the Nigerian army in its fight against the jihadists of Boko Haram. However, its contract was cancelled by a new president, Muhammadu Buhari, who reckoned his own forces should finish the job alone. They have signally failed to do so.
Soldiers of misfortune -- Why African governments still hire mercenaries | May 28th 2020 | The Economist

Battle-hardened soldiers, many of them paramilitary leftovers of the apartheid regime, have pursued private wars simply to put bread on the table. Leon Lotz was once a member of the Koevoet -- "crowbar" in Afrikaans -- a paramilitary police unit created by South Africa's apartheid regime to root out guerrillas in what is now Namibia. Thirty years later, something persuaded him to take up arms again in a foreign country. He was killed in March, apparently by friendly fire from a tank in northern Nigeria. Among the most striking facts about Lotz was his age: 59.

A wealth of media reports, witness accounts and photos on social media suggest that he is not the only white mercenary who helped turn the tide against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in recent weeks, allowing Nigeria to hold a relatively peaceful election. Whether as technical advisers or frontline combatants, some are said to have come from the former Soviet Union but about 300 are reportedly from South Africa and nearing retirement age...

Cilliers recently took part in an Afrikaans radio programme during which three or four mercenaries phoned in. "They said things like: 'I'm trying to help my kids. My lifestyle is quite crappy. I'm trying to put the grandkids through school.'"

Over the past two decades such private military contractors (to use the respectable term) have gone into battle in Angola, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan, and been linked to a failed plot to smuggle Muammar Gaddafi out of Libya.

According to those who have hired or worked alongside them, they are highly professional, skilled and battle-hardened by the South African border wars, in which they often fought alongside black comrades...

Mann, the son of a South African mother and British father, co-founded a private military firm that fought on the government sides against rebels in Angola and Sierra Leone in the 1990s. At its peak, Executive Outcomes employed about 1,500 South African mercenaries, some of whom are alleged to be in Nigeria today...

"The South African mercenaries are giving Boko Haram a hiding. These guys are in their 50s, but for a pilot or tank driver it doesn't really matter. There's going to be no Boko Haram. It boggles the mind that Britain and America promised to help Nigeria but never did.
South Africa's ageing white mercenaries who helped turn tide on Boko Haram | World news | The Guardian | Tue 14 Apr 2015 | Last modified on Wed 29 Nov 2017

“Cabo Delgado is a Muslim majority province...”

That’s their base of operations, isn’t it? Bomb that region continuing in the city. Maybe the muslims will think again.

Beware Sharia: https://www.facebook.com/bassem.ibrahim.3954/videos/pcb.184051329766074/184051306432743/?type=3&theater