Senior US Official Sees No Link Between IS-Affiliated Groups In West Africa, Mozambique

Faizan Hashmi Published April 07, 2021 | 08:14 PM

No "tangible" links have been confirmed between insurgents who swore loyalty to Islamic State (IS, ISIS, banned in Russia) terrorist group in Mozambique and IS-affiliated militants in West Africa, Michael Gonzales, a deputy assistant secretary at the US Department of State's Bureau of African Affairs, said on Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th April, 2021) No "tangible" links have been confirmed between insurgents who swore loyalty to Islamic State (IS, ISIS, banned in Russia) terrorist group in Mozambique and IS-affiliated militants in West Africa, Michael Gonzales, a deputy assistant secretary at the US Department of State's Bureau of African Affairs, said on Wednesday.

"In terms of tangible links or coordination between ISIS Mozambique and the ISIS or Al Qaeda [banned in Russia] groups that we see in West Africa, no, we don't see that very manifestly. We certainly do see ISIS Mozambique coordinating with ISIS Central Africa ... as well as with ISIS based out of Somalia," he said in a press call.

Violence swept the eastern coast of Mozambique after an Islamist group, known locally as al-Shabaab, raided the port of Palma on March 24, beheading civilians and forcing tens of thousands to flee.

The attack came days before the United States staged a first-ever multinational West Africa Joint Operations exercise spanning the three West African Sahel nations of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

Gonzales admitted that there were many similarities between the armed groups in the three nations and Mozambique in the south in terms of dynamics on the ground. He said that Islamists operating in these regions were capitalizing on a prolonged lack of governance.

"The drivers that are enabling factors that lead to violent extremists to take advantage of these kinds of situations certainly do share many similarities between the two regions," he added.

Julie Cabus, a deputy assistant secretary and assistant director training directorate at the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, said in the press call that the exercise aimed to enhance the investigative capacity of national counter-terrorism units and facilitate regional cross-border cooperation.