Islamic State terrorists carried out several attacks on villages in northern Mozambique, setting fire to homes and abducting several women. But those who tried to run away suffered a different fate.
The terrorists rounded up dozens of villagers who tried to flee into the surrounding countryside, took them to a soccer stadium, and first beheaded them, then cut up their bodies into little pieces, according to press accounts from an independent news source in Mozambique.
Terrorists raided another village and beheaded six additional victims. The ISIS fighters are trying to establish an independent country in the gas-rich province of Cabo Delgado.
Up to 2,000 people have been killed and about 430,000 have been left homeless in the conflict in the mainly-Muslim province.
The militants are linked to the Islamic State (IS) group, giving it a foothold in southern Africa.
The group has exploited poverty and unemployment to recruit youth in their fight to establish Islamic rule in the area.
Many locals complain that they have benefited little from the province’s ruby and gas industries.
Mozambique is considered a “failed state” by many in the international community — a perfect breeding ground for ISIS terrorists.
Mozambique has become a borderline failed state, its democracy a sham, and its energy riches won’t guarantee that its security or governance will improve in the future. And Mozambique is not unique. It is an example of how rich countries say they want to improve the lives of people in poor countries, but through their failure to insist on better governance inadvertently wind up ensuring that their poverty will endure.
Mozambique is the 146th “least corrupt” country in the world out of 188. It’s bad even for Africa. Billions of dollars in Western government and private company aid have poured in and much of it appears to have disappeared down the rabbit hole.
But Mozambique is crying for help.
Mozambique’s government has appealed for international help to curb the insurgency, saying its troops need specialised training.
In April, more than 50 people were beheaded or shot dead in an attack on a village in Cabo Delgado and earlier this month, nine people were beheaded in the same province.
Human rights groups say Mozambican security forces have also carried human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture and killings, during operations to curb the insurgency.
There have been calls from the usual sources — international aid NGOs and Western liberals — for “negotiations” to end the “conflict.” The gleeful Islamists will go on beheading people and shocking the upstanding citizens of the West with their tactics. But “peaceful negotiations? The last thing they want is to negotiate with the government. They demand complete capitulation and submission to the will of Allah and won’t stop for anything less.
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