Islamic State in Mozambique Rearing Its Head Again (2025)

Since 2017, Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado has been in the throes of a violent jihadist insurgency led by Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a (ASWJ), a local militant group that is formerly one of two wilayats of the Islamic State’s Central African Province (ISCAP). Violence has ebbed and flowed over the past eight years, with some gains by Rwandan counterinsurgency forces helping stabilize pockets of territory within Mozambique. Overall, the conflict has claimed more than 6,000 lives, while countless others have been maimed and disfigured as a result of the violence. While the size of the insurgency is down considerably from its peak—IS fighters in Mozambique now number in the hundreds rather than the thousands—it remains decentralized and, in the past, has been able to recruit foreign fighters from other countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa successfully.

At present, conditions on the ground are worsening, making the situation ripe for an IS revival along Africa’s southeast Swahili coast. In many ways, the factors at play—a lack of government-provided services, widespread poverty, rising ethno-sectarian tensions, and lingering land disputes—amount to somewhat of a perfect storm for an insurgency to roar back. The current situation is further exacerbated by porous borders and a robust illicit drug trade along the coast, along with limited resources and infrastructure to deal with the destabilizing effect of climate change and natural disasters.

The insurgency has leveraged deeply entrenched grievances amongst the population with establishment politics in Mozambique, including socio-economic inequalities and resource extraction issues, to destabilize the region. The recent wave of post-election violence following the disputed 2024 presidential elections threatens to intensify these dynamics, potentially fueling the conflict and strengthening insurgent narratives, providing an important backdrop for the ASWJ to further extend its territorial control.

The ruling party, Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO), has been in power since Mozambique’s independence in 1975 and continues to face mounting criticism for corruption, human rights abuses, and economic mismanagement. This culminated in the "Tuna Bond" scandal, a corruption scheme in which Mozambican state-owned companies secured two billion dollars in secret loans between 2013 and 2014, ostensibly to fund maritime projects. However, the funds were misappropriated, with significant amounts diverted for kickbacks and bribes, ultimately plunging the country into a financial crisis that torpedoed public trust. Violent non-state actors, including IS in Mozambique, have seized upon these grievances in their effort to recruit new followers.

More recently, allegations of electoral fraud in the October 2024 election—which saw FRELIMO’s Daniel Chapo secure a victory of 65 percent of the vote—ignited widespread protests and a violent state crackdown on protestors. Since October 2023, violence linked to political unrest has claimed over 300 lives. The recent political volatility has complicated an already complex security environment, and disputed local elections in 2023 have created a fertile ground for ASWJ to expand its influence as the popular trust in state institutions continues to diminish.

Last week, opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane of the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO) party returned from self-imposed exile, reigniting a fresh wave of protests and highlighting the persistent volatility of Mozambique's political landscape. His return underscores the challenges of achieving a peaceful resolution to the ongoing unrest, as tensions remain high and the prospects for dialogue appear increasingly remote. The government’s draconian and heavy-handed response to the protracted protests in Mozambique has diverted attention and resources away from counterinsurgency efforts, creating a significant foothold for the ASWJ to entrench its position.Even as IS insurgents have capitalized upon government and security force missteps, they have also missed myriad opportunities to win the hearts and minds of the local population, engaging in their own scorched-earth tactics instead, a brutal approach that has alienated large segments of Mozambicans.

Despite its own propensity for extreme violence, the insurgency has attempted to frame itself as an alternative to the ineffective government of FRELIMO, portraying its campaign as a fight against systemic injustice. Analysts have highlighted a pronounced shift in the modus operandi of the group, aimed at presenting a viable system of governance to the ruling party. Insurgents have publicly condemned the ruling party for the endemic corruption that exists within the state apparatus and have also accused the state of marginalizing the majority Muslim population in the north. Their proposal of a Sharia-based government has found some traction among its supporters.Since 2023, the group has proactively endeavored to transform its image to a more legitimate form, with reports highlighting a rise in dawah activities across several provincial districts in the north, including leading prayers and distributing food to local communities. Their appeal has been strengthened by recent efforts to deliver basic services and security assurances in regions under their control, leveraging government shortcomings and marking a clear shift toward more explicit forms of jihadi state-building. These efforts may be catalyzed by the success of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria. Even as IS and HTS remain bitter rivals, the former is perceptive enough to identify strategies that work and may seek to emulate them accordingly.

The insurgency has targeted strategic resource-rich regions, such as the Palma and Mocímboa da Praia districts in Cabo Delgado, which are focal to Mozambique’s expanding liquified natural gas (LNG) industry and home to substantial investment from Western multinational corporations. In 2021, the group gained control over the Palma district, killing over one thousand civilians and forcing TotalEnergies to suspend a 20-billion-dollar LNG project in the Afungi Peninsula. This is viewed as one of the single deadliest jihadist attacks on the African continent to date. As a result of the evolving tactical capabilities of the group since 2021, the United States designated ASWJ as a foreign terrorist organization, naming it ISIS-Mozambique.

ASWJ has carried out a sustained and multi-pronged campaign of violence on critical infrastructure, including government facilities, transportation routes, and energy projects. This approach has sought to systematically destabilize the region by driving away civilians, community leaders, and other key stakeholders, effectively undermining the ability of the state to maintain governance and undermine the administrative fabric of Cabo Delgado. Since the beginning of the insurgency, over 2.3 million people have been displaced from the region, with security forces encouraging civilians to return. Despite this, limited state services, poverty, and persistent governance failures have faced those who have returned. Moreover, the reliance of foreign actors on militarized responses—with over 2,500 Rwandan soldiers currently deployed in the region—has raised concerns about the socioeconomic inequalities that have propelled the insurgency’s rise and sustained its influence. These forces, partly tasked with protecting foreign investments in the resource-rich region, have reportedly targeted civilians with indiscriminate violence. This counterterrorism approach risks deepening local grievances by prioritizing economic interests over addressing the root causes of conflict, undermining efforts to achieve long-term stability and further alienating affected communities.

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