Islamic State – Mozambique (ISM) terrorists recently attacked the Armed Forces for the Defense of Mozambique (FADM) twice in February at two separate locations in Cabo Delgado province.
On February 20, the terrorists killed at least two members of the armed forces during an attack on a military outpost in Quissanga. Local sources told Mozambican news website Moz24h that the terrorists retreated before entering residential areas.
The attack in Quissanga was preceded by an IS improvised explosive device attack on a Mozambican Army vehicle, but no deaths were reported. These attacks on FADM came after months of the IS mainly targeting civilians.
The attacks raised fears that terrorists are becoming emboldened and changing their tactics, but experts say it is too early to make that assessment.
“I don’t think we’re looking at a fundamental shift in tactics at the moment,” Tom Gould, a journalist for Zitamar News, which covers Mozambique, told ADF. “The vast majority of ISM’s [Islamic State Mozambique] victims are still civilians. The string of attacks on FADM bases in February probably reflects a need to resupply. Looting garrisons has always been the insurgency’s main source of weapons, ammunition and equipment.”
Throughout much of February, IS was active in the province’s Macomia, Meluco, Mocímboa da Praia and Muidumbe districts. From February 10 to 23, at least 12 political violence attacks resulted in 16 deaths, including at least 11 civilians, according to Cabo Ligado, a website that monitors the insurgency.
On February 13, IS terrorists murdered an unidentified number of people and looted food in the Meluco district. They also attacked a village that borders the district of Montepuez, where deaths were also reported.
“The terrorists are there and say they have a base nearby, so they move around frequently,” an anonymous source said in a report by Mozambique’s state-owned news agency Agência de Informação de Moçambique. “The soldiers arrived at the attacked village, but the terrorists were about five kilometers away. The soldiers claimed that they needed reinforcements.”
On February 18, Islamic State terrorists attempted to invade the village of Litamanda in the Macomia district, but local forces repelled the terrorists and killed two of them, according to Cabo Ligado. The next day, the ISM group attacked a village just north of the town of Macomia, where they looted, burned homes and killed two civilians. A local source said stolen food from western Macomia was being transported through the Catupa forest to support terrorists on the coast.
The insurgency is driven by a lack of government services, widespread poverty, rising ethnic tensions, lingering land disputes and ongoing violence since the presidential election in October 2024. Natural disasters such as Cyclone Chido, which killed at least 120 people in December, have further destabilized the province. Porous borders and a thriving illegal drug trade along the coast are exacerbating the situation, according to the Soufan Center.
Although attacks continue, the number of ISM fighters in Mozambique has shrunk to a few hundred fighters from several thousand earlier. This is due primarily to military gains by international forces led by the Rwandan military.
As The New York Times reported, the insurgents have broken into small groups scattered across dense forests. Attacks are smaller, but they were more frequent in 2024 than in 2023 and have spread to new areas. “The government is doing the best it can,” Valige Tauabo, Cabo Delgado’s governor, told the newspaper.
Nearly 6,000 people have been killed and up to half of Cabo Delgado’s 2.3 million have been displaced since the insurgency began in 2017.