According to the Pentagon’s own newspaper, Stars and Stripes, the Mozambique paramilitaries are linked to Isis and have been listed as a foreign terrorist group, similarly to another insurgent movement in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It reported that the US State Department said the Mozambique branch has orchestrated a series of “large scale and sophisticated attacks”, most notably resulting in the capture of the strategic port of Mocimboa da Praia near the border with Tanzania.
As the situation deteriorates in Mozambique and US involvement increases as a result, a similar situation is playing out across the Sahel region of northern Africa. The insurgency there has been developing for years and stretches to half a dozen countries, from Mauritania in the west to Chad, more than 3,000 kilometres to the east.
As reported in my column a fortnight ago, the CIA recently completed work on a drone base in the north of Niger, which is also convenient for operations against Isis groups across the border in southern Libya. French and US armed drones and special forces are already based in Mali, but have done little to control Islamist paramilitaries in Niger. On 15 March, at least 58 people were killed in a market-day attack at Banibangou, near the border with Mali. This was followed a few days later with an even worse attack in the Tahoua region by suspected jihadists, killing at least 137 people.
Military campaign in Iraq
While US forces continue and even expand their presence in the north and south-east of Africa, Biden is also trying to further withdraw from Iraq and Syria, but that is also proving problematic. As last week’s column reported, a US security think tank has said that Isis has taken over territory in central Syria and is poised for a Ramadan surge. And even more significantly, there have been reports in the past week that Isis is back in control of territory in northern Iraq to such an extent that a major military operation by US and Iraqi forces has been undertaken.
According to the US military publication, Air Force Magazine, 133 air attacks were carried out over a ten-day period against a cave complex in the Qarachogh Mountain area 50 kilometres south-west of the Kurdish city of Erbil. Military Times reported that this was part of a larger operation that included Iraqi air force and army aviation units, carrying out 312 air attacks on 120 hideouts, and killing 27 Isis paramilitaries.A Pentagon report released last month estimated that there are between 8,000 and 16,000 Isis paramilitaries still in Iraq and Syria, and recent actions show that the conflicts with Isis, al-Qaida and other armed groups are far from over. Whether in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Mozambique, the DRC, Libya or Niger, the ‘war on terror’ continues.
Biden and his administration may want to see an end to Isis, but the US and its allies, including France, the UK and other NATO countries, are creating a pernicious legacy that is largely of their own making. Until they move beyond the standard military responses and address the underlying socio-economic ecology of revolt – which has been worsened by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic – the wars will continue for many years to come.
