Why there hasn’t been greater international involvement in the fight against Al-Shabaab in Mozambique
Since 2017, Mozambique has been embroiled in an insurgency against elements of the Islamic State. Despite a hard-fought campaign against ISIS in the Middle East, direct international intervention by the great powers in Mozambique has been limited. While the Islamic State in Mozambique is ideologically similar to ISIS, it does not receive the same international attention. This is largely because the insurgency is contained to Mozambique, great power interests are not jeopardised by the insurgency, and a lack of funding for United Nations programmes.
The Insurgency
An armed group began attacking police and military installations in the Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique in 2017. The group called itself Al-Shabaab (not to be confused with the Somalia organisation by the same name) and declared its intention to spread Sharia law throughout Mozambique. In 2020, Al-Shabaab was linked to the Islamic State when photos surfaced with insurgents waving black flags with white lettering akin to those flown by ISIS. Later that year Al-Shabaab linked its insurgency to the larger Islamic State Central Africa Province, which is composed of several insurgencies taking place in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Central African Republic.
Initially, Mozambique deployed Cabo Delgado’s local security forces to combat Al-Shabaab. Mostly composed of local and provincial police, they were inadequately equipped to be effective against the insurgency. Like ISIS, Al-Shabaab makes use of terrorist attacks against both military and civilian targets. It targeted local security forces in an effort to capture heavier weaponry, including mortars and light artillery. Maputo decided to employ the Wagner Group and Dyck Advisory Group, private military corporations, to engage in counterinsurgency operations and train local forces. However after sustaining high casualties, both corporations withdrew from the conflict. As the insurgency grew, Maputo turned to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Rwanda to organise a coalition of 3,000 soldiers. The coalition has had limited success, liberating the city of Mocimboa da Praia, yet the insurgency has continued to acquire territory and expand the scope of its attacks. The European Union and the United States have sent military contingents to Mozambique also. However, they consist of extremely small groups of advisors – the United States sent twelve Green Berets.
So with a growing insurgency in support of the Islamic State, why has there not been greater international intervention?
Containment
The insurgency remains relatively contained in Northeastern Mozambique, though a few border towns in Tanzania have been targeted by the insurgency. Al-Shabaab hasn’t engaged in a large international campaign of attacks, as opposed to ISIS, who launched attacks across the globe in Europe, the United States, Southeast Asia, and Africa. As such Al-Shabaab hasn’t directly threatened great powers. In fact, Al-Shabaab has yet to attack Maputo. The insurgency has been highly focused on claiming territory in the Cabo Delgado region and addressing local grievances over intense inequality and historical neglect instead.
Great Power Interests
However, that is not to say that Al-Shabaab hasn’t attacked sites in which great powers have interests. In 2021, Al-Shabaab attacked a liquified natural gas facility owned by Total, forcing its employees to evacuate and prompting Total to withdraw from Cabo Delgado. The United States granted Total a multibillion dollar loan to develop oil and natural gas refinery facilities as well as protection plans for those facilities. But the jeopardisation of a multibillion-dollar loan and certain refinery facilities does not constitute a significant threat to great power interests akin to that posed by ISIS. ISIS captured significant portions of territory in Syria, which benefited from strong Russian support, and Iraq, which benefited from American support. Both Russia and the United States had significant interests in Syria and Iraq, respectively, which contributed substantially to their decision to intervene in the fight against ISIS. However, the stability of Mozambique is not linked to the interests of great powers to the extent that an intervention would be politically possible.
U.N. Intervention
The United Nations Security Council has not held formal debate on the potential for a peacekeeping operation in Cabo Delgado. The primary reasons for this were stated by a representative of the Secretary General: there is already a military presence in the region, and the United Nations does not believe that a purely military solution is likely to be successful. Indeed, a peacekeeping operation would be redundant to the current SADC operation in Cabo Delgado. However, non-military initiatives by the United Nations have been meagre at least. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has only received 60% of the funding it would need to be effective in addressing the refugee crisis caused by the insurgency. Meanwhile the United Nations Development Program’s Mozambique Mission is underfunded by $30 million. Thus, the United Nations is hampered by a lack of funding for its operations in Mozambique.
Therefore while the insurgency in Cabo Delgado is linked to the Islamic State, there is little incentive for great powers to escalate their involvement in the conflict. It has remained contained within Mozambique and is being addressed by local forces. Moreover, great power interests in Mozambique are not being threatened to the extent that an intervention is warranted.