Mozambique: Unwarranted Optimism in the Face of Renewed Terrorist Attacks
On 20 September, Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi landed in Mocímboa da Praia in Northern Mozambique, about a year after the town was recaptured from armed groups of Islamist extremists linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The visit was strategic as Nyusi attempts to assert the security of the region and the stability of the country despite a succession of attacks since the beginning of 2022. It also coincided with the visit of the European Union Training Mission in Mozambique by a delegation of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence of the European Parliament, where Nathalie Loiseau, Member of the European Parliament and Chair of the Subcommittee underlined the need to accelerate the delivery of military material to the Mozambican armed forces. The handover of military equipment started on 9 September following the official visit to Mozambique of the EU High Representative, Josep Borrell. Borrell stressed that even though all eyes are on Ukraine at the moment, the EU remains concerned about all the crises in the world. This renewed focus on Mozambique is strategic, as the EU seeks new energy suppliers in the context of the war in Ukraine.
Mozambique, which has the third largest gas reserves in Africa, after Nigeria and Algeria, is a potential gas supplier to the EU. It is expected to start exporting liquified natural gas (LNG) for the first time, with upcoming shipments from ENI’s Coral-Sul floating LNG project. The company confirmed its interest in other hydrocarbon exploration areas and therefore its willingness to participate in the 6th licensing round organised by Mozambique’s National Petroleum Institute. TotalEnergies is another major player in the development of LNG with a $20 billion project still waiting to resume. The project was interrupted in 2021 following jihadist attacks that led to the Battle of Palma in Cabo Delgado Province. At the time, the company declared a situation of ‘force majeure’ and evacuated all employees. Last June the company made it public that it would resume work once it was certain the area was secured. On 16 September, Mozambique Finance Minister Max Tonela expressed optimism that the company would eventually resume the LNG project by March 2023. Similarly, Nyusi urged Western energy companies to resume work in Northern Mozambique, assuring them that stability has returned and security has improved.
However, the current security landscape in the northern region should raise concerns. A severe humanitarian crisis continues to affect nearly 1 million people, all of whom are internally displaced due to violence perpetrated by the Islamist group Ahlu-Sunnah wal Jama’ah (ASWJ). The Islamist group has links with ISIL and has managed to defeat the army, leaving behind a trail of death, rapes, sexual enslavement and abductions since the insurgency began in 2017. The attack on Palma, which led to the evacuation of TotalEnergies’ employees in 2021, was carried out by militants of ASWJ. The city was retaken after 11 days of fights and extreme violence against civilians. Sporadic attacks continued in April and May. The situation seemed to improve in the following months thanks to the intervention of the Southern African Development Community forces, and Rwandan troops in July 2021.
Nevertheless, security deteriorated again in 2022. In March 2022, the UN Refugee Agency sounded the alarm about the ongoing violence and related humanitarian crisis in northern Mozambique. According to the agency, security continued to be fragile in some areas, despite localised improvements. In June, new signals of deterioration emerged: the extremist militants launched a campaign of attacks spreading southward, reaching areas such as the previously violence-free districts of Ancuabe, Chiure, and Mecufi. In early September, militants continued to attack villages as they moved south, reaching the Erati and Memba Districts of the Nampula Province. According to a statement by President Nyusi, six citizens were beheaded, three kidnapped, and dozens of houses torched. Government buildings were also set on fire. On 6 September, an Italian nun was killed in Chipene, Memba. According to local authorities, the situation in Nampula Province was stable on 19 September thanks to a large-scale military deployment. In response to these attacks, Tanzania and Mozambique signed an agreement on 21 September to fight terrorism.
The surge in gas demand, the EU’s renewed interest in the country, the state’s desire to see gas projects resume, and the partial successes in the fight against terrorism could lead to an unintentional blindness and unwarranted optimism. According to a report from Cabo Ligado, a conflict observatory in Mozambique, there is no clear evidence that ASWJ has been weakened sufficiently to rule out future attacks of the same complexity as the Palma terror attack. Furthermore, the return of TotalEnergies to Mozambique could be an element of destabilisation. The resumption of the gas project and related activities could fuel grievances and eventually prepare a fertile terrain for the proselytising of ASWJ. TotalEnergies’ activities have caused the displacement of hundreds of families, the expropriation of agricultural land without adequate compensations, and the relocations of families far from their sources of livelihood. Grievances also stem from resentment towards the poverty of the region, which has so far not been able to benefit from the economic spin-offs of the TotalEnergies project. Additionally, during the 2021 escalation, the government deployed military personnel to protect the oil and gas giant’s areas of operations, neglecting the security of local communities. On 21 September, Mozambique’s Public Integrity Center expressed concern about the return of TotalEnergies, calling it hasty and potentially damaging to the security of the Northern Provinces.
At a time when Europe has a vested interest in strengthening ties with Mozambique, and Mozambique has much to gain from demonstrating that it is performing well and managing the terrorist threat to attract oil and gas companies back. Yet, stability in Mozambique remains fragile. Tensions, previously limited to the north of the country, are spreading to the south, while the threat of terrorist attacks persists. Mozambique’s ambition and the EU’s interest in importing LNG from the country could lead to the resumption of gas projects in unstable areas, which could ultimately result in the rapid deterioration of security, with civilians paying the highest price.
Escalating Conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan: An Explainer
What happened
On the night of 12 to13 September, a conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan flared up. Within hours, both sides blamed each other for the initial provocations. According to the Armenian Ministry of Defence, at around 00:05 local time, Azerbaijan launched intensive shelling against military positions in the direction of the towns of Goris, Sotk, and Jermuk, with the support of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. That same night, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence declared that Armenian armed forces had committed a large-scale provocation on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border before 00:05, towards Dashkasan, Kalbajar and Lachin.
On 11 September, the Armenian Ministry of Defence denounced the spread of disinformation by the Ministry of Defence of Azerbaijan and denied fire exchanges on the night of 10 to 11 September. After the initial news of ignited violence, Azerbaijan issued an official statement denouncing the presence of Armenian disinformation campaigns and denying the targeting of the civilian population, objects, and infrastructure.
Mutual accusations and reports of ongoing fighting continued throughout 13 September. In the afternoon, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told parliament that at least 49 servicemen had lost their lives. In a late evening press release, the Armenian Ministry of Defence included Verin Shorzha, Artanish and Nerkin Hand in the list of areas under attack, rejecting the accusation that the Russian-brokered ceasefire agreements had been violated. According to the US National Security Council coordinator for strategic communication, the ceasefire was "almost immediately broken." The same evening, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence declared the death of 50 servicemen. During the day, the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, released a statement calling for immediate de-escalation, while Armenia officially appealed to the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). The Ministry of Foreign Affair made it public that a special session of the CSTO Permanent Council was requested and during the session the Armenian representative described Azerbaijani actions as a gross violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Armenia.
On Wednesday 14, fights continued throughout the day. Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reported to the parliament that Azerbaijani forces had taken control of 10 square kilometres and that the death toll had risen to 105 soldiers. In the evening, the Armenian Ministry of Defence reported tensions had been defused.
Another ceasefire has allegedly been reached on the evening of 15 September, although the situation remains precarious and it is difficult to say whether it will last.
Background
The two countries have been in a frozen conflict for decades since the fully-fledged conflict that opposed the two throughout the 1980s and 1990s over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. In 1991, the region of about 150,000 people declared independence, initially as the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh and later as the Republic of Artsakh. The territory is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, a predominantly Muslim country, but with an ethnically Christian Armenian population and under the control of Armenian armed forces. The latter is supported by Russia, which has deployed around 2,000 peacekeeping forces in the area and is part of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), the Eurasian intergovernmental military alliance, which entails a mutual defence act. Azerbaijan is backed by NATO member Türkiye.
Fighting has regularly broken out in the area of Nagorno-Karabakh. In 2020, a new war started on September 27, with the launch of the operation ‘Iron Fist’ by Baku. The goal of the mission was to acquire control of Nagorno- Karabakh to fulfil the Azerbaijani desire for territorial integrity. During the conflict, thousands of soldiers lost their lives on both sides. After 44 days of conflict and hours after Azerbaijan claimed it captured the town of Shusha, a 9-point ceasefire was reached and signed on 9 November. Azerbaijan managed to reclaim control of areas outside the Nagorno-Karabakh region, including the Lachin area, that had been under Armenian control for decades. The ceasefire represents indeed a new partitioning of the contested area, favourable to the Azerbaijani vision. The last point of the ceasefire concerns the corridor that connects Azerbaijan to the exclave of Nakhchivan and states that economic and transport connections with the exclave should be unblocked. The attention toward the corridor did not wane. In late 2021, the Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, supported by the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, described it as a bridge to “unite the entire Turkic world.” In March 2022, Yerevan denounced a new aggression after Baku forces entered the village of Farrukh, in an area returned to Azerbaijan after the 2020 conflict and in which Russian peacekeepers were deployed. At the beginning of August 2022, Azerbaijan accused Yerevan of having violated the 2020 ceasefire provisions and announced the launch of a retaliatory action that resulted in the seizure of chunks of land in the area of Sarybaba.
What’s different
The latest escalation has involved targets deeper inside Armenian territories. Yerevan has accused Azerbaijan of attempting to enter Armenian territory, violating the borders of a sovereign country. Russia is involved in a demanding conflict in Ukraine that is reaching the end of the seventh month; news of an effective counteroffensive by the Ukrainian forces are spreading, while Moscow is appearing more and more isolated and therefore more reliant on Azerbaijani land routes for trade with Asia and Iran. The military effort in Ukraine makes it difficult to imagine that Russia is ready for an intervention in the South Caucasus, and regional geopolitical partnerships are more complex than in the 2020 conflict.
What to expect
The surging conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has implications not only for the future of each state’s borders, but also for a range of regional stakeholders with strong alliances with both nations. In addition, the conflict has serious detrimental potential to energy exports from the Caspian Sea region, as highlighted by Azerbaijan during the 2020 conflict. Russia, Türkiye, Iran, the United States, and Israel have stakes in the conflict, and how each responds will dictate the scale that this conflict has the potential to take.
Türkiye: Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has, and will continue to, stand by the side of Azerbaijan. Erodgan has repeatedly claimed that his relationship with Azerbaijan is one of “one nation, two states”, and his response to the current episode of violence is no different. Erdoğan, on 14 September, said that Armenia will face consequences for its breach of the 2020 agreement reached after the war. While not defining those consequences, Türkiye’s history of military support for Azerbaijan provides an idea of what Turkish support might look like in the coming weeks. While being an exporter of military equipment to Azerbaijan, Türkiye has been conducting joint military training with Azeri forces since 1992. Türkiye’s military capacity-building ventures in Azerbaijan for three decades, along with its prominence in NATO and support for Azerbaijan joining the Organisation, indicates the former will take an unwavering stance in favour of Azerbaijan’s actions in the continued conflict. In addition, Türkiye’s recent history of incursions into northern Syria concretises support for Azerbaijan’s seeming attempt at retaking land.
Russia: Russia arguably has the largest stake in the conflict and has the power to control the future of the violence. With over 2,000 peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh, regional Russian influence remains high. Russia has historically kept strong diplomatic ties with the conflict – a Russian-backed truce was signed during the first iteration of the war in the 1990s, and the 2020 peace deal was signed by Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. While Russia might have affiliations towards Armenia as a former Soviet member, analyses after the resolution of the 2020 conflict highlight Russia’s complex way of approaching its relations with Armenia. Scholars have argued that Russia did not directly quell Azerbaijan’s 2020 military violence as it proved the military weakness of Armenia’s military and government, allowing Russia to have a heavier hand in commanding the future politics of Armenia. However, that was two years ago, and Russia is in a wildly different geopolitical situation now. In response to Armenia’s invocation of Article 4 of the CSTO, member states, coordinated by Russia, met on 13 September and are sending a joint mission to Yerevan to assess further action. Apart from Article 4, Russia – as the figurehead of the CSTO – has no solid responsibilities towards Armenia at this time. The Russia-backed ceasefire failed within hours, and an interpretation of Russia’s relative inaction could be a repetition of their 2020 diplomatic policies. However, the more likely reason for inaction is the international awareness of Russia’s military failures and extensive land loss in Ukraine. Ukraine has reclaimed 8,000 square kilometres of land since the start of September, in what some are calling a turning point in the 6-month long war. In the face of the situation, Russia cannot be focusing on Armenia and Azerbaijan at the present moment, and its few mentions of the conflict in the past days might be attributed to diplomatic spectacle to affirm a projected image of Russian stability and integrity in the face of dramatic loss.
Iran: The Islamic Republic will likely play a safe onlooker in the ongoing conflict. With recent scrutiny over the extended revived nuclear deal negotiations, Iranian leaders are unlikely to set forth a strong opinion or policy against Armenia or Azerbaijan. However, territorial integrity remains key for Iran: the Islamic Republic shares a 44km border with Armenia, and the Foreign Ministry called for the preservation of current borders between all states. While Tehran supported Baku’s victory in 2020, the current position of Iran is to avoid another conflict in the region and support a peaceful resolution.
Israel: While not a frequently cited ally of either Armenia or Azerbaijan, Israel remains an ardent supporter of Azerbaijan’s military. Israel’s support for the latter primarily revolves around military exports: consistent supplies of Stinger missiles and Harop drones to Azerbaijan, including a 2021 $2 billion negotiation by Azerbaijan for Israeli arms, are strategically important for Israel. Azerbaijan’s long border with Iran is likely the primary pillar of Israel’s continued support. In the long-term, Israel could be warming ties with Azerbaijan as both a diplomatic and military partner to leverage regional alliances, and become geographically closer, to its foremost geopolitical foe: Iran. Apart from weapons alliances, Israel might be encouraged to take this new episode of violence as an opportunity to assert diplomatic mediation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as some scholars from within Israel are already recommending. While Israel’s immediate role is less clear, the opportunities are vast for the nation to exert its power in the South Caucasus for its own benefit.
The United States: In a phone call between Secretary of State Blinken and Azeri President Aliyev on 13 September, Blinken called for Azerbaijan to stop shelling Armenia. Blinken is further concerned about Russia’s ability to worsen the conflict as a method to distract from its recent losses in eastern Ukraine, although supports a Russian diplomatic solution to the conflict. In regards to the 2020 conflict, the United States took no real action in the conflict, other than Democrats calling for an end to military aid to Azerbaijan. Focused at the time on the 2020 presidential elections, the United States is facing a similar situation now with upcoming midterm elections and continued pressure to support Ukraine. It is foreseeable for the United States to make statements in broad support of Armenia, but little action can be expected from officials.
Azerbaijan has seized upon a geopolitical opportunity to lay military claim to lands previously unseen in previous iterations of the conflict. The stakeholders in the conflict against Azerbaijan’s present and historical actions are notably preoccupied: both Russia and the United States have significant obligations that take priority over the current conflict. All the while, Azerbaijan’s allies – Türkiye and Israel – have the capacity to take on a large role in shaping the conflict to their own benefit by propping up Azerbaijan’s actions. Azerbaijan is empowered by its regional standing, creating the conditions for this latest escalation to be successful, in line with its victory in 2020.
Within this context, the conflict is unlikely to escalate to a fully-fledged war involving international powers. Rather, the regional environment allows Azerbaijan to continue its offensive, relatively unchallenged by regional or international actors. While some have highlighted the potential energy export implications of the conflict, the current European energy crisis actually benefits Azerbaijan’s offensive. In July, Baku and the European Union signed a Memorandum of Understanding, a deal that would see increased energy exports to European states over the next five years, and Azerbaijan’s current energy pipelines in Georgia, Türkiye, and the Mediterranean mean that Europe has an infrastructure to rely on in advance of the expected winter crisis. In the short term, then, Europe’s energy deficit spells out more benefits for Azerbaijan and its offensive into Armenia: the EU is unlikely to pursue heavy sanctions or condemnation against Baku as the South Caucasus state remains a potential ally in a looming dark winter for Europe.
The end result of the conflict remains clouded, however. There is a possibility Azerbaijan claims sovereignty over more land that is internationally recognized, as was the case in the 2020 resolution. Yet, critiques of the 2020 agreement as organizationally bare and not definitive towards the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh territory could be levelled against Azerbaijan’s claims once a ceasefire is achieved. It seems, at present, that Azerbaijan has a green light to continue its military operations; however, challenges arise once a ceasefire can be negotiated and committed to. Then, Azerbaijan has to rally the diplomatic powers of its key allies against Armenian claims to land, the CSTO, and potentially a UN-backed resolution. Due to Russia’s current preoccupation with Ukraine, any deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan is unlikely to arise quickly between regional actors: more international players will likely be drawn into the negotiations after military violence ends. When that time comes, Azerbaijan might not have the diplomatic strength, even if backed by Türkiye, to uphold its military gains. While the present is grim for the Armenian side of the conflict, the real fate