Bloody Rich: Mozambique Sees Resurgence of Militant Attacks As It Tries To Develop Its Resources
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Bloody Rich: Mozambique Sees Resurgence of Militant Attacks As It Tries To Develop Its Resources
MOZAMBIQUE
Fifty years after Mozambique gained independence from Portugal, the southeast African country is struggling to contain surging jihadist violence in its northern coastal Cabo Delgado province.
In August, Islamic State-affiliated militants known as al-Shabaab attacked eight districts in Cabo Delgado. Seeking to install their harsh version of Sharia law and seize the region’s natural gas reserves and ruby mines, the militants have attacked villages, fought Mozambican troops, and set up roadblocks on back roads to extort resources from travelers. Christian drivers stopped at these roadblocks must pay tolls to pass or face capture.
The United States-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) warned that the Islamic State fighters were also beheading Christians and burning down churches and schools, calling the tragic situation a “silent genocide.”
“What we see in Africa today is a kind of silent genocide or silent, brutal, savage war that is occurring in the shadows and all too often ignored by the international community,” Alberto Miguel Fernandez of MEMRI told Fox News. “That jihadist groups are in a position to take over not one, not two, but several countries in Africa – take over the whole country or most of several countries – is dangerous.”
Mozambique has been battling the Islamist insurgents in Cabo Delgado since 2017, struggling to contain the violence, while relying on support from troops sent by Rwanda, South Africa, and other regional partners.
In 2020, the insurgents initiated a wave of attacks in which they beheaded dozens of people, including children.
Now, observers say there has been a resurgence of attacks and child kidnappings this year, which have been overshadowed by Mozambique’s deadly and long-running post-election protests, recent cyclones, and US cuts to foreign aid.
More than 95,000 people have been displaced due to the violence, the United Nations said. UN officials also warned that the militants were preventing vital humanitarian aid for those who remain. More than 6,000 people have died in the region since 2017. Around a third were civilians.
The political dominance of the Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO), which fought for independence and has run the country since 1975, is one reason why the jihadist problem as well as other issues – poor infrastructure, scant civil institutions, ethnic tensions, extreme inequality and endemic poverty despite tremendous natural resources – persist in the country, argued the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs.
“The persistence of protests and the country’s economic paralysis underscore a revolt that extends beyond electoral disputes,” it wrote. “The opposition has evolved into a broader challenge against a one-party system tainted by repeated corruption scandals in recent years, whose promises of development have left behind a particularly vulnerable population.”
When President Daniel Chapo won office last year, defeating Venâncio Mondlane of the Optimist Party for the Development of Mozambique, a party that split off from FRELIMO, for example, voters eager for change took to the streets to protest for months, accusing Chapo of fraud. The government responded with a harsh crackdown, resulting in more than 300 deaths in the demonstrations.
In July, the government charged Mondlane with incitement to terrorism.
Among the government’s failings over the years is the failure to bring together different parties to figure out how to address the root causes of the jihadism in Cabo Delgado, noted the Center for Strategic Studies. Compensating those who have suffered violence, offering amnesty to those who have run afoul of government officials for expressing their dissident political opinions, and funding more youth initiatives would help defuse the instability in the region, Center researchers argued.
Chapo hopes money can help. He recently announced a $40 million, World Bank-supported fund to finance small and medium businesses, reported Al Jazeera. More importantly, Qatar’s Al Mansour Holding recently signed a $20 billion deal to fund energy and agriculture projects, Reuters wrote.
But the insurgents are likely not to be defeated that easily, say analysts. As of June, insurgents have kidnapped more than 120 children from the Cabo Delgado province, to ensure their mission goes on: Witnesses told the Associated Press that children abducted from towns and villages have been used as fighters in subsequent attacks.
“When al-Shabab fighters enter or attack certain areas, they tend to abduct children,” Augusta Iaquite, coordinator at the Association of Women in Legal Careers in Cabo Delgado, told Human Rights Watch. “They take them to train them and later turn them into their own fighters.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
China, Russia, India Show Unity at Summit in Challenge to US
CHINA
The leaders of China, Russia, and India staged a rare display of unity at a summit in northern China on Monday, holding hands and pledging closer cooperation in a move widely seen as a counterweight to US President Donald Trump’s policies, which have strained relations with New Delhi and failed to weaken Moscow’s reliance on Beijing, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clasped hands in Tianjin, as more than 20 world leaders arrived in the northern Chinese city to attend the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting.
Founded in 2001 by China, Russia, and four Central Asian states, the SCO began as a regional security bloc to curb Western influence in Central Asia, the Associated Press noted. It has since expanded to 10 full members – including India, Pakistan, Iran, and most recently Belarus – along with 16 so-called dialogue and observer partners.
Xi urged members to resist a “Cold War mentality,” pitching the SCO as an alternative to the Western-led order, and calling for a “more just and equitable global governance system,” while pledging $280 million in aid and $1.4 billion in loans through the bloc’s banking consortium.
He also unveiled a new Global Governance Initiative, a sequel to his earlier initiatives on security, development, and civilization, CNN added.
Although the summit did not produce any major initiatives, observers noted that it carried heavy symbolic weight. They described it as part of Beijing’s efforts to promote an alternative to the United States-led global order amid a changing geopolitical environment, according to Al Jazeera.
Notable at Monday’s summit was Modi’s presence, marking his first visit to China in seven years.
Xi told the Indian leader that China and India should be “friends, not rivals,” while Modi described the summit as “an atmosphere of peace and stability,” the BBC added.
The Indian prime minister also announced the resumption of direct flights between the countries, suspended since a deadly 2020 border clash, without providing a timeline.
Modi’s visit came after India’s relations with Washington soured in recent weeks following the Trump administration’s decision to impose 50 percent tariffs on Indian goods as punishment for buying Russian oil.
Analysts told the Journal that Trump’s approach has pushed India to demonstrate strategic autonomy and reset ties with Beijing, though lingering border disputes mean New Delhi is unlikely to abandon the US in the long term.
The SCO summit also underscored the ongoing ties between China and Russia, as Moscow continues to face economic sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago.
Putin praised the bloc for reviving “genuine multilateralism,” saying it would replace “the outdated Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models.”
He used the summit to defend his invasion of Ukraine and said a “fair balance in the security sphere” was needed for long-term peace.
His remarks came weeks after a meeting with Trump in Alaska aimed at reaching a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Western observers warned that the imagery of Xi, Putin, and Modi embracing underscored the challenges facing Trump’s “reverse Kissinger” strategy of prying Russia away from its reliance on China, which has provided economic support amid Moscow’s war with Kyiv.
“The ‘reverse Kissinger’ doesn’t work,” Estonian lawmaker Marko Mihkelson told the Journal. “India’s alignment with the Russia-China dynamic … would signify the strengthening of a new world order led by China, and a narrowing of the strategic room for maneuver available to the United States and its allies in Asia.”
Ukraine Arrests Suspects in Murder of Former Parliament Speaker, Alleging Russian Culpability
UKRAINE
Ukrainian authorities detained a suspect in the murder of former parliamentary speaker Andriy Parubiy, who was killed in an attack over the weekend, and said they believe Russia may be behind the assassination, Politico reported.
A gunman disguised as a food delivery worker shot and killed Parubiy, 54, on Saturday in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Parubiy, a protest leader in the pro-Western Euromaidan Revolution of 2013-2014, had served as speaker from April 2016 to August 2019, and has long advocated for stronger ties with the European Union, Al Jazeera wrote.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram Monday that the suspect had given “initial testimony” and that authorities are urgently investigating to establish the full facts behind the murder.
According to Internal Affairs Minister Ihor Klymenko, the suspect was arrested in the Khmelnytsky region of western Ukraine. Klymenko said that the crime was “carefully prepared,” as Parubiy’s movements were tracked, the route was mapped, and an escape strategy was planned.
Some Ukrainian officials hinted at Russian involvement in the killing. Ivan Vyhivskyi, head of the National Police of Ukraine, said in a statement on Facebook that the murder was not “accidental,” adding that there was a “Russian trace” to it.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, both sides have traded accusations of assassinations of prominent political and military figures. Other prominent Ukrainian politicians and activists have been killed this year, including former lawmaker Iryna Farion in Lviv and anti-Russian activist Demian Hanul in Odesa.
Russian state media reported that Parubiy had been wanted by Russia since 2023.
Parubiy was one of the key leaders in Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution, which ousted the Kremlin puppet regime of Viktor Yanukovych, now exiled in Russia. He was also a leading advocate for Ukraine’s cultural, linguistic, and religious independence from Russian influence.
At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin has long argued that the Euromaidan Revolution was a coup d’état planned by the West and has refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government. He has also demanded that Ukraine reinstate the Russian Orthodox church and Russian as a state language in the country as conditions for a peace deal.
In 2014, Parubiy had survived an assassination attempt by a grenade, according to media reports.
Iran-Backed Houthis in Yemen Kidnap UN Staff After Leader’s Death in Israeli Strike
YEMEN
Yemen’s Houthi rebels raided the offices of several United Nations organizations and detained 11 staff members on Sunday, a day after an Israeli strike killed the prime minister of the militant group’s government, the Washington Post reported.
UN special envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said in a statement Sunday that Houthi forces known as Ansar Allah forced their way into the organization’s premises in the capital, Sanaa, and the port city of Hodeida.
They confiscated UN property and detained staff members from the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF, the Guardian noted.
The UN Secretary General António Guterres strongly condemned the arrests, asking for the immediate and unconditional release of the detained, according to France 24.
Grundberg added that these arrests add to the 23 UN personnel already being detained by the Houthis, some since 2021 and 2023. One UN employee died in custody earlier this year.
The kidnapping of more UN staff came after the Iranian-backed Houthis, who control parts of Yemen, announced the death of their prime minister, Ahmad al-Rahawi, and several other ministers due to an Israeli strike on a government meeting in Sanaa on Thursday.
Rahawi will be replaced by his deputy, Muhammad Ahmad Miftah, according to the Houthis’ satellite television channel Al-Masirah.
Rahawi is the highest-ranking Houthi official killed since Israel began targeting the group in retaliation for its attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea and on Israel. The Houthis argue that those attacks are in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza who are being attacked by Israel, and would stop when a ceasefire is in place.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that they intend to continue assassinating senior Houthi officials.
Meanwhile, the Houthis on Monday claimed responsibility for a missile attack on an oil tanker off the coast of Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, the Associated Press wrote.
In a pre-recorded message aired on Al-Masirah, the Houthi military spokesman alleged the vessel, the Liberian-flagged Scarlet Ray, owned by Eastern Pacific, was tied to Israel. Eastern Pacific, which is ultimately owned by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer, had previously been targeted in attacks believed to have been orchestrated by Iran.
The company said in a statement that there were no injuries and the vessel remained undamaged.
DISCOVERIES
A Water Story
The first cities of human history may not have risen simply from fertile soils, but from the restless push and pull of water.
At least, that’s the conclusion of a new study that reimagines how Sumer – considered the cradle of civilization – took shape in southern Mesopotamia, now modern-day Iraq, around 7,500 years ago.
Scholars had long thought the ancient civilization was powered mainly by rich farmland between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. But a research team recently found evidence that tides and shifting sediments at the head of the Persian Gulf played a central role.
“Our results show that Sumer was literally and culturally built on the rhythms of water,” said Liviu Giosan, a lead author of the study, in a statement.
Between 7,000 and 5,000 years ago, the Persian Gulf stretched much farther inland than today, with tidal flows carrying freshwater deep into the lower Tigris and Euphrates twice daily, Cosmos Magazine noted.
The team said that early Sumerians likely harnessed this dependable rhythm using short canals to irrigate crops and date groves – an elegant solution that required no massive infrastructure.
But this watery advantage didn’t last because the rivers formed deltas at the head of the Gulf over time, cutting off the power of the tides.
This ecological shock forced ancient communities to reinvent themselves through ambitious irrigation and flood-control projects, according to researchers, helping to trigger Sumer’s so-called Golden Age around 2100 BCE.
“We often picture ancient landscapes as static,” said co-author Reed Goodman. “But the Mesopotamian delta was anything but. Its restless, shifting land demanded ingenuity and cooperation, sparking some of history’s first intensive farming and pioneering bold social experiments.”
The consequences were cultural as well as agricultural: Flood myths, water-centered deities, and the very ideologies of Sumer’s city-states may have been shaped by this shifting environment.
“Rapid environmental change fostered inequality, political consolidation, and the ideologies of the world’s first urban society,” said Holly Pittman, Director of the Pennsylvania Museum’s Lagash Archaeological Project, who was not involved in the study.
The authors noted that the findings offer both a window into the past and a mirror for today.
“Our work highlights both the opportunities and perils of social reinvention in the face of severe environmental crisis,” explained Giosan. “Beyond this modern lesson, it is always surprising to find real history hidden in myth.”