President Filipe Nyusi said the country’s army is fighting groups linked to ISIL in gas-rich Macomia in Cabo Delgado.
Mozambique’s army is fighting armed groups that launched a major attack on the city of Macomia, in the north of the country, President Filipe Nyusi said in a televised speech.
The town is in Cabo Delgado, a gas-rich northern province where groups linked to the ISIL group (ISIS) launched an armed uprising in 2017. Despite a massive security response, there has been an increase in attacks since January this year.
Two security sources told Reuters news agency that hundreds of fighters were believed to be involved in the latest attack on Friday morning.
“Macomia has been under attack since this morning. The exchange of fire is still continuing,” Nyusi said at around 10:00 GMT, adding that the armed group’s fighters initially withdrew after about 45 minutes of fighting, but later regrouped and returned.
Friday’s attack appeared to be the most serious attack in the area in some time.
A regional force from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which deployed to Mozambique in 2021, began withdrawing last month as its mandate ends in July.
Piers Pigou, head of the Southern Africa Program at the Institute for Security Studies, said the attack on the Macomia district headquarters validates concerns about a security vacuum opening with the withdrawal of troops from Southern Africa.
“Claims that most of the province has been stabilized are evidently not accurate,” he told Reuters.
Nyusi said attacks could occur in these transitional periods and he hoped SADC forces would be able to intervene and help. It was unclear whether they were still positioned in the area or involved in the fighting.
Rwanda has also sent troops to Mozambique to help combat armed groups.
Figures released by the International Organization for Migration in March show that more than 110,000 people have been displaced since the end of last year, amid the escalation of violence in the province.
The offensive comes as French oil company TotalEnergies seeks to restart a $20 billion liquefied natural gas terminal in Cabo Delgado, which was halted in 2021 due to violence. That project is about 200 kilometers north of Macomia, the city under attack.
ExxonMobil, with partner Eni, is also developing an LNG project in northern Mozambique and said last week it was “optimistic and moving forward” as the security situation improved.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
