Joint Forces Pursue IS-Mozambique Southward

ADF STAFF

Joint security forces in northern Mozambique continued their seek-and-destroy operations against Islamic State-Mozambique (ISM) after the terror group launched another foray into the Nampula Province in April.

“Insurgents crossed the Lurio river by boat into Nampula and attacked the villages of Nasua and Manica in Erati district on April 25,” the conflict observation website Cabo Ligado reported. “IS claimed to have burned homes, churches and schools and to have killed one civilian in Nasua.

“The next day, insurgents clashed with security forces around the village of Mithoca, according to IS. Police in Nampula confirmed that insurgents had attacked Erati district and that schools and homes had suffered extensive damage.”

From April 26 to May 3, Mozambican (FADM) and Rwandan (RDF) troops conducted joint operations against terrorists in the dense forests of the Nampula district and on small islands along the Lurio River, the country’s second-largest river.

“They [terrorists] have been hiding in these forests since they were dislodged by RDF and Mozambique forces from Catupa forest [in Cabo Delgado province’s Mocamia District] last year,” Brig. Gen. Ronald Rwivanga, Rwanda Defense Force spokesperson, told Rwandan newspaper The New Times. “They keep moving southwards as they get dislodged.”

The April attacks were ISM’s third violent incursion into Nampula. The group first crossed into the province in June 2022, followed by another foray in September 2022. ISM insurgents attempted a raid on Nampula in February 2024 but were prevented by flooding of the Lurio.

As they did in their previous incursions, the militants targeted rural communities in northern Nampula Province in April 2024 after meeting little resistance from state forces on their way south through Cabo Delgado.

“The insurgents operate in small groups in these forest areas,” Rwivanga said. “They also hide in small islands along the Lurio river. The registered terrorists’ casualties were several dozens. Large stocks of arms were left behind, but some casualties were carried by the fleeing insurgents across the river in Nampula Province.”

In December 2023, FADM Army Commander Maj. Gen. Tiago Alberto Nampele said his forces, along with the RDF and the Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM), countered ISM movements and prevented the terrorists from accessing food.

The three forces designed a joint plan to pursue the retreating terrorists.

“They do not concentrate themselves in bases,” Nampele told The New Times, adding that the terrorists don’t have them.

“It’s just small camps, very, very small, whereby when they notice our forces, the first thing they do is spread themselves in very small groups of two or three. They are flexible, and they can move from one place to another.”

Rwanda has about 2,500 Soldiers and police personnel in the Ancuabe, Mocímboa da Praia and Palma districts of Cabo Delgado. Brig. Gen. Patrick Karuretwa, who leads RDF international military cooperation, said Rwanda has pledged to send more troops as SAMIM draws down its forces by the end of the year.

SAMIM’s withdrawal “obliges us to take certain measures,” Karuretwa said, according to the Mozambique Information Agency. “We shall train Mozambican Soldiers to occupy the places where SAMIM used to be stationed.

“We are also increasing the number of our own forces, and making them more mobile, so that they can cover larger areas.”