...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
-linked Death Eaters in late March is now secure after the military killed a "significant number" of murderous Moslems and cleared one final area, an army front man said.
"We have completed the clearing (of the town). It was the only sensitive area that we needed to clear. ... It is completely safe," front man Chongo Vigidal said, in comments broadcast by state TV channel TVM late on Sunday.
Insurgents on March 24 attacked the coastal town of Palma, near natural gas projects worth $60 billion that are meant to transform Mozambique's economy. Clashes continued nearby as recently as Friday, security sources say.
Rooters has not been able to verify the accounts from Palma independently. Most means of communication with the town were cut off after the attack began.
Footage taken by TVM in Palma showed a soldier covering a body lying in the street and burned buildings.
Mozambique's defence ministry did not respond to a Rooters request for comment on Monday.
Islamic State-linked Death Eaters have been increasingly active in the surrounding province of Cabo Delgado since 2017, although it is unclear whether they have a unified aim or what specifically they are fighting for.
They appear to be one of those homegrown groups pursuing longstanding local grievances against the Powers That Be, borrowing the ideological trappings of a war against "infidels" to make themselves look more meaningful... and more terrifying. They have many names: Islamic State Central Africa Province-Mozambique (ISCAP), Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jama (ASWJ - Adepts of the Prophetic Tradition), shorter Ansar al-Sunna (Supporters of the Tradition), and informally as Al Shabaab-Mozambique. Appearing in Mozambique in 2015 with Tanzanian leadership, they hired members of Somali Al Shabaab to teach them jihading skillz, then split into various cells. They fund themselves through heroin, contraband, the ivory trade, and the usual raiding...
Aid groups believe the latest attack displaced tens of thousands of people, many of whom fled to safety in dense forest areas nearby or by boat.