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The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the first time for an insurgent clash in northern Mozambique, according to SITE Intelligence which monitors jihadist activities worldwide.<\/p>\n
An Islamist insurgency has been growing in the Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado since 2017, with more than 200 people killed and many villages torched.<\/p>\n
Islamic State issued a statement late Tuesday claiming involvement in an apparent gunfight with the Mozambique military in Cabo Delgado province, although an insurgency expert expressed caution over the claim.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe soldiers of the Caliphate were able to repulse an attack by the Crusader Mozambican army in Metubi village, in the Mocimboa area,\u201d said the statement, according to a SITE translation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey clashed with them with a variety of weapons, killing and wounding a number of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mujahideen captured weapons, ammunition, and rockets as spoils.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mozambican government and military declined to confirm any rebel activity.<\/p>\n
Insurgents regularly attack villages, kill local people \u2014 sometimes beheading them \u2014 and burn down houses despite a heavy police and military presence in the northern province.<\/p>\n
An insurgency expert who declined to be named said Islamic State were unlikely to have direct contact with the local fighters.<\/p>\n
He said the claimed attack on Monday had not been reported locally, and the village of Metubi was not in Mocimboa da Praia district.<\/p>\n
\u201cIslamic State is not in Mozambique. It is just propaganda, but they might have links,\u201d the expert said.<\/p>\n
Islamist fighters have targeted remote communities in gas-rich, Muslim-majority Cabo Delgado province since October 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe country is falling victim and we all need to understand the real reasons,\u201d President Filipe Nyusi said last month in an interview with the privately-owned Canal de Mocambique newspaper.<\/p>\n
According to local sources, 16 people were killed in a highway ambush on May 31, in the highest single death toll of the insurgency.<\/p>\n
Attackers threw home-made explosives into a truck \u2014 a new tactic \u2014 and then opened fire.<\/p>\n
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