Bringing ex-insurgents into a government’s security forces can win over locals and improve intelligence — but only if it is done well.
Islamist insurgents in northern Mozambique are retreating for the first time since 2017. Mozambican security forces have struggled to contain the insurgency since it emerged in Cabo Delgado province; even employing foreign military contractors didn’t help. In March, rebels briefly and destructively captured Palma, a hub for Mozambique’s burgeoning oil and gas industry, sparking security fears around the region.
But last month, 1,000 Rwandan combat troops and police arrived. More forces from the Southern African Development Community, the regional intergovernmental organization, will soon be arriving. On Aug. 8, Rwandan and Mozambican forces captured the key city of Mocimboa da Praia, almost exactly one year after insurgents took control. The insurgents have split into smaller groups while fleeing larger towns and cities, and have proven highly adept at blending into the population. Islamist insurgencies are particularly difficult to defeat, but more insurgents and their supporters soon may fall under the control of government forces.
Rwanda’s military has a history of integrating former insurgents into its forces, a successful tactic in its fight against rebels in the country’s northwest after ending the 1994 genocide. Integrating former rebels has helped security forces around the world improve intelligence capabilities in counterinsurgency and in post-conflict environments. Better intelligence could help the government remain in control in Cabo Delgado, especially when foreign troops leave.
SIMILARITY BETWEEN BOKO HARAM AND AL-SAHBAABH
Like with Boko Haram and other African Islamist insurgencies, it has been difficult to untangle the ideology and membership of northern Mozambique’s rebels. Outsiders have called the insurgents many names. Locals now refer to them as al-Shabab — although they have no apparent links to the Somali group — or as the Islamic State. The insurgents pledged allegiance to “Islamic State Central” in Iraq and Syria in 2018, but ISIS has not sent any significant material aid or offered strategic direction. Those fighting in Cabo Delgado include some African foreign fighters and some dedicated Islamist militant locals, who adopted brutal tactics such as beheadings. But most Mozambican fighters are motivated by more local concerns: government neglect and locals’ exclusion from the wealth resulting from oil, gas, and rubies extracted from their own region.
Northern Mozambicans have long perceived Frelimo, Mozambique’s ruling party since independence in 1975, as serving southern ethnic groups. Frelimo’s base was among Tsonga-speaking ethnic groups and mixed-race and more Europeanized or assimilated Mozambicans in the south, excluding central Shona-speaking ethnic groups and northern Makonde and Makua groups. Frelimo therefore struggled for legitimacy in the country’s north and center.
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