“Is Pakistan spreading Islamic extremism in Africa?”, First Post, July 27, 2023:
“On 12 August, 2020, Islamic militants calling themselves Ansar al-Sunnah seized the coastal town of Mocímboa da Praia in northern Mozambique. It was a bloodbath. The Mozambican Army, which had repelled a similar attack just five months previously, disintegrated. Within days, the militants controlled most of northern Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province and swore allegiance to the Islamic State.
Unable to counter the group effectively, Russia’s Wagner Group fled, their first major defeat. In March 2021, the same terrorists emerged from the bush and attacked the port city of Palma, 40 kilometers south of the Tanzanian border, besieging the Amarula Hotel where more than 100 foreign contractors working for a nearby oil concession lived or sought shelter; eyewitnesses say dozens died.
In January 2022, I visited Cabo Delgado to witness firsthand counterinsurgency operations. In Palma, I attended a ceremony marking the opening of school after the Islamic State-mandated closures and watched as the manager of the Amarula Hotel worked to plaster over bullet holes and remove shrapnel left over from rocket-propelled grenades…..”
Read the full article at Firstpost.com
