SUMMARY
Since 2017, Mozambique's northernmost province Cabo Delgado has been torn by an Islamist insurgency. The insurgency was started by the previously largely unknown group Ahlu al-Sunna wa'l Jama'a (ASWJ), that since 2019 has developed into a franchise of the Islamic State (IS). The insurgency has been marked by its brutality, with the insurgents regularly massacring civilians and forcibly recruiting children. The government, itself marred by allegations of serious abuse of civilians, was unable to hinder the insurgency from escalating and capturing territory on its own. Between 2021-2024, nine African countries were deployed military forces to help Mozambique combat the insurgency. The foreign intervention led the Mozambican government to recapture all previously lost major settlements and seriously hampered the insurgents’ ability to conduct large offensive operations, but has not succeeded in uprooting to insurgency. After 2024, only Tanzania and Rwanda retained forces in Mozambique, despite the insurgency showing signs of recovery. The conflict has called into question the expectation that Mozambique would become one of the world's largest natural gas exporters.
Since 1989, Mozambique has experienced the intrastate, non-state and one-sided categories of UCDP organized violence.
2025
Protest violence in Mozambique decreased substantially in 2025, after a March agreement between the new president Daniel Chapo and main opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane ended the protest movement, which had erupted after the October 2024 elections and resulted in nearly 300 people being killed in 2024, the vast majority in one-sided violence perpetrated by the police. The anti-government protests in December 2024 resulted in the deaths and arrests of members of the Naparama movement in the north of the country, sparking violent retaliations. Clashes erupted in February 2025, as Naparama militias stormed the local administrations in several rural areas in Nampula and Zambezia, in several cases forcing the local government and security forces to withdraw from the locality. Another round of fighting occurred in April as police and military forces struck back against the Naparama that had established some degree of territorial control over some localities, reestablishing government authority. The clashes reignited the conflict over government, which hadn't been active since Ahlu al-Sunna wa'l Jama'a (ASWJ) pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS) in 2019.
During 2020 and early-2021, IS began capturing and holding territory in Mozambique's northernmost province of Cabo Delgado, proving to neighboring countries that Mozambique was failing to contain the insurgency on its own. Nine African countries therefore agreed to send troops to help contain IS in Mozambique, the first of which arrived in Mozambique in early July 2021. The international intervention greatly limited IS's ability to operate in its previous coastal strongholds, and its ability to launch large-scale attacks on government forces, thus causing a sharp decrease in violence. IS fighters have however dispersed into surrounding areas lacking a strong military presence, spreading into new areas even as violence overall has plummeted. Most of the contributing countries withdrew their forces during the second half of 2024, though the biggest contributor, Rwanda, has instead pledged to increase its contribution. Disputes between Mozambique and Rwanda of payments for the deployment has led to threats by Rwanda that they might withdraw their forces. Fighting between IS and government forces in 2024 and 2025 has been particularly fierce in Macomia district, where a series of attacks by IS on the district centre caused Mozambican and Rwandan forces to launch a major offensive against IS bases in Macomia's coastal region and the large Catupa forest. The fighting continued throughout 2025, as despite government success in capturing some bases, they appeared unable to hinder IS from returning to set up new ones in the same area.
IS in Mozambique began enacting a new strategy in its relations with local communities during 2023, decreasing its reliance on theft for supplies and brutal massacres in enforcing its will on local communities, instead trying to establish relatively positive relations with communities. Partially as a result of this new strategic direction, and partially due to the insurgency’s overall smaller presence, one-sided violence decreased in 2023 to a fraction from its height in 2021. One-sided violence perpetrated by IS increased sharply again in 2024 and again in 2025, but remains far below previous heights.
A troubled history
Mozambique formally became a Portuguese colony in the late 19th century, though Portugal took de facto control of several coastal areas already in the late 15th century. As other colonial powers in Africa were conceding independence to their colonies in the 1960s, Portugal was reluctant to pursue similar policies. An armed struggle for independence was launched in September 1964 in the remote and marginalized hinterlands of the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado, leading to an extra-state conflict.
The movement that launched the armed struggle for independence was the Marxist-Leninist Frelimo (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) founded in 1962 by Dr Eduardo Mondlande. Mondlande was killed in exile in 1969 and Samora Machel led Frelimo for the rest of the conflict. The situation suddenly changed in mid-1974 when a bloodless military coup deposed the dictatorship in Portugal, with the result that independence was promised to the Mozambicans by the new Portuguese regime. On June 25 1975, Mozambique was declared an independent nation and Frelimo became the government of Mozambique. Frelimo has since maintained its control of the government of Mozambique, often using heavy-handed tactics to suppress opposition.
The nascent country did not enjoy peace for long; in 1977 a new armed struggle began – this time, an intra-state conflict over government between Frelimo and Renamo (Resistência Nacional Moçambicana, National Resistance Movement of Mozambique). Renamo was a Mozambican rebel group which emerged in 1976 under the tutelage of the apartheid regimes in Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) and South Africa. The two regional powers incited, trained and funded Renamo in retaliation for the Frelimo-regime’s support of the anti-apartheid movements in South Africa and Rhodesia respectively. Between 1985 and 1990, following the end of the Rhodesian regime, Zimbabwean troops were deployed in support of the Frelimo government. The Frelimo-Renamo conflict, which lasted fifteen years (1977-1992) and ended with the 1992 Rome peace agreement, is infamous for the dire consequences for the general population; millions had to flee (within and outside the country) and civilians were killed in high numbers as Renamo employed one-sided violence as one of its primary tactics.
A troubled peace
The 1992 peace agreement led to the establishment of multiparty elections in Mozambique in 1994, with Renamo as the main political opposition party. Frelimo has won every election since, amidst widespread allegations of fraud and suppression of the opposition. Renamo has maintained an armed guerilla force, and violence has occasionally erupted between them and the government, as in 2013 and 2016, if never at the level of intensity previously seen.
A new peace agreement, the National Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, was signed in August 2019. The peace agreement was meant to put a final end to the conflict by disarming, demobilizing and reintegrating Renamo combatants, in part by integrating the former guerillas into Mozambique's armed forces. A Renamo splinter faction, the Renamo Military Junta, thereafter engaged in small-scale state-based and one-sided violence in the central Mozambican provinces of Sofala and Manica, but never reached the threshold for inclusion before its dissolution after its leader, Mariano Nhongo, was killed in clashes with the army in October 2021. By the end of 2022, all Renamo bases except for one had reportedly been demobilized, and almost all its fighters had been reintegrated into society or joined the army.
2017-2018: Conflict with ASWJ in the north
In 2018, a new conflict over government broke out, due to an Islamist insurgency launched by Ahlu al-Sunna wa'l Jama'a (Followers of the Prophetic Tradition, ASWJ) in Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique, one of only two provinces with a Muslim majority in the mainly Catholic country. Cabo Delgado was one of Mozambique's least developed and poorest provinces, despite a vast wealth in rubies and hydrocarbons. Cabo Delgado's hinterland was where the independence war against Portugal had first taken off, leading to many of Frelimo's top cadres being from the region's Makonde ethnic group, including the current president Filipe Nyusi. As a result, the local party elite was largely Catholic and Makonde. Left with little oversight from the distant capital, located in the far south of Mozambique, they proceeded to enrich themselves, often by gaining control of logging and mining activities through state contacts. This has caused tensions with the regions other major ethnic groups, the Mwani and Makua, both of which are majority Muslim and live mainly along the coast of Cabo Delgado. Tensions increased after 2009, as these groups had seen little of the proceeds from the large discoveries of ruby and gas deposits in areas mainly inhabited by these groups, and at times suffered from displacement and lost livelihoods from the projects.
ASWJ originally mainly consisted of disgruntled Mwani Salafi Muslims that disapproved of the local religious authorities’ acquiescence of state authorities, though the Makuan element is said to have increased since. Its insurgency began with an attack on Mocimboa da Praia in October 2017, after which the militants dispersed into small autonomous cells. These cells mainly raided distant villages in the countryside of Cabo Delgado, using rudimentary weapons to target civilians and small military detachments throughout 2018. The insurgency gradually gathered strength, however, and began to increasingly target government forces.
2019-2021: Internationalization and escalation
In July 2019, ASWJ became an affiliate of the global Islamic State (IS) movement. Militant attacks in Cabo Delgado after this date are therefore considered part of the territorial conflict to incorporate Mozambique into IS's global caliphate. Mozambique was originally part of IS's Central Africa Province, alongside the branch in DR Congo, but later was designated its own province. The conflict escalated rapidly during 2019 and 2020, as government forces struggled to contend with the mobile insurgent forces. In mid-2020, IS shifted tactics from raiding towns and villages, to capturing and holding some of them; most notably the regional hub of Mocimboa da Praia.
Whereas ASWJ had mostly been engaged in one-sided attacks against remote villages, the targeting of security forces and urban centers escalated severely during 2020. IS launched coordinated offensives against several district capitals throughout the year, leading to the temporary seizure of the district centers of Macomia, Quissanga and Muidumbe districts before withdrawing back into the bush. IS simultaneously escalated its one-sided violence against civilians in captured villages, often in connection to kidnappings and forced recruitment. In August 2020, IS captured the regional hub Mocimboa da Praia town, and maintained control over it for close to a year, despite repeated attempts by the government to recapture it. This marked the first attempt by IS to control territory in Mozambique, reminiscent of its territorial so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
As government forces were increasingly on the back-foot, the government began relying on local militia forces, known as the Local Forces, to bolster their capacity to provide security to remote villages. These forces largely consisted of Frelimo (see above) veterans from the war of independence and their children, predominantly from the Makonde ethnic group, and operated under the direction of the police forces. This close relationship between state and Local Forces was further strengthened as they were legalized and incorporated as a part of the military in late 2022.
In October 2020, Cabo Delgado was the staging ground for IS attacks into Tanzania, thus expanding the territorial claim of IS Central Africa Province to include Tanzania, alongside its previous activities in Mozambique and DR Congo.
2021-2024: International intervention disperses IS
The last weeks of 2020 saw increased IS activity around the Afungi peninsula in Cabo Delgado's Palma district, where several of Africa’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects are centered, leading to the suspension of work in the area. The security risk in the area spike in late March 2021, as IS temporarily overran the closest major town of Palma with a large-scale and well-coordinated attack by several hundred fighters. The attack on Palma and the surrounding villages was incredibly brutal, with IS fighters killing over 740 civilians in only about a week, often by beheading the victims, with hundreds more still missing.
The attacks caused fears for the future development of Mozambique's LNG extraction in the Rovuma basin and offshore from the Afungi peninsula, with some early investors, including Total energies, pausing their involvement in the projects. Mozambique's LNG output were previously estimated to peak at around 43 million tons per year, representing around 10% of the global supply in 2021. Much of the hopes on Mozambique's future economic development were tied to these projects, and the country has already heavily indebted itself against the expectation of large profits from LNG, sparking fears of possible default on its debt should the gas project be severely delayed. The projects themselves have contributed to the problems in the region, according to local reports, by forcibly relocating villages with limited compensation, and by having failed to create much-anticipated jobs for the impoverished local population.
The attack on Palma town caused shockwaves through the region, finally bringing home the danger the growing insurgency represented for the entire region. As a response, eight Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states agreed to send military forces to help the Government of Mozambique combat IS. The first foreign troops to arrive, however, was a contingent of 1,000 soldiers from Rwanda which were reported to first participate in battle in July, arriving to support the government independently from the SADC mission. Soon thereafter the SADC forces arrived with around 700 soldiers, though the mission was planned to expand further. The Rwandan contingent quickly helped change the dynamic of the conflict, forcing the insurgents to retreat and capturing Mocimboa da Praia in early August, just short of a year after it had fallen to IS. By the end of 2022, the number of foreign troops deployed in northern Mozambique had reportedly increased to upwards 4,500 soldiers, of which over half were part of the Rwandan contingent.
The international intervention appeared to have greatly limited IS's ability to operate in its previous coastal strongholds, and has forced it to shift back to hit-and-run tactics from its forest bases. IS's capacity for large-scale offensive operations has appeared to have been greatly diminished since the international intervention began. While this has greatly improved security in the previously hard-hit northeastern corner of Cabo Delgado, and has contributed to fatalities from the conflict decreasing both in 2022 and 2023, the insurgents have moved away from areas with a strong military presence into surrounding areas which were previously relatively safe from insurgent attacks. Palma district, the center for gas extraction in Cabo Delgado, has gone from being one of the most heavily affected districts by the insurgency into one of the safest, largely due to a heavy presence of Rwandan troops. The improved security situation led to Total, the biggest investor in the gas extraction in Mozambique, which declared force majeure and withdrew its personnel after the March 2021 attack on Palma town, declaring in 2024 its intent to return to Mozambique.
Districts in southern Cabo Delgado, as well as the neighboring Niassa and Nampula provinces, have instead faced repeated incursions by small mobile insurgent groups since late 2021. Niassa, to the west of Cabo Delgado, was attacked in November and December 2021. From May 2022, insurgents began launching attacks into southern Cabo Delgado, hitting Meluco district in May, followed by attacks into the districts of Ancuabe, Chiure, Mecufi and Montepuez during the summer, before hitting Nampula province, to the south of Cabo Delgado, in September. Attacks renewed in southern Cabo Delgado in October, before moving westward from Chiure into Namuno, Montepuez and Balama districts during November. While the main force of insurgents moved back north towards the end of the year, smaller bands continued attacks in the southern districts of Montepuez and Meluco until March 2023. The geographical spread of the insurgency has forced Mozambique and its allies to spread their own forces thinner, threatening the tenuous security that had been established in districts such as Muidumbe, Macomia and Mocimboa da Praia, where insurgents began returning in force during the second half of 2022. These three districts became the center for insurgent activity in 2023, even as the international coalition that had first established security there withdrew in July 2024. The insurgency continued to spread violence to new areas in 2024, forcing security forces to spread out ever thinner. In 2023, 9 districts saw fatal violence involving IS, whereas 13 districts did so in 2024. In 2025, 15 districts in three provinces were effected by lethal violence involving IS. The number of deaths from clashes with government forces fell somewhat in 2024, though overall violence increased, as clashes with the Naparama intensified and almost twice as many civilians were killed by IS. Violence involving IS, both statebased and one-sided, increased sharply in 2025, though it remains well below the peak in 2021. Fighting between IS and government forces in 2024 and 2025 has been particularly fierce in Macomia district, where a series of attacks by IS in 2024 on the district centre caused Mozambican and Rwandan forces to launch a major offensive against IS bases in Macomia's coastal region and the large Catupa forest. The fighting continued throughout 2025, as despite government success in capturing bases, they appeared unable to hinder IS from returning to set up new ones in the same areas.
The spread of IS into southern Cabo Delgado gave rise to a village self-defense militia, acting outside of government supervision, called the Naparama, which has fought IS since November 2022. The group is unified in its rituals of "vaccination", which is said to make its members immune to bullets. It draws its inspiration from a movement of the same name that was active in the early 1990s, during the conflict with Renamo. Unlike the pro-government militias known as the Local Forces, which largely consist of Frelimo veterans and are drawn from ethnic groups with close ties to the Frelimo elite, the Naparama appears to have emerged independently from the state, as a direct result of the state's inability to provide security. Relations between the government and Naparama deteriorated badly during the protest movement against electoral fraud that began in October 2024. Many Naparama supported the opposition presidential candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, against the Frelimo government, and some members of the movement were shot or arrested during the crackdown of the protests, sparking violent retaliation by Naparama militias. In late December, a supposed commander of the Naparama declared his intention to go to Maputo to "wage war" until the newly appointed president, Daniel Chapo, stepped down and handed the victory to Venâncio Mondlane. Clashes erupted in February 2025, as Naparama militias stormed the local administrations in several rural areas in Nampula and Zambezia, in several cases forcing the local government and security forces to withdraw from the locality. Naparama attacks appeared to cease after an agreement was reached between Mondlane and Chapo for compensation for victims of state violence in March. Another round of fighting occurred in April as police and military forces struck back against the Naparama that had established some degree of territorial control over some localities, reestablishing government authority. Fighting slowed down considerable afterwards, with both sides appearing somewhat hesitant to provoke further violence. The clashes reignited the conflict over government, which hadn't been active since ASWJ pledged allegiance to IS in 2019.
Extensive attacks on civilians
Both ASWJ and IS have extensively employed one-sided violence, often with the explicit goal of forcing civilians to leave the conflict zone (see: ASWJ - Civilians and IS - Civilians). By late 2020, over half a million people had been internally displaced; the equivalent of almost half the population in the conflict zone. By November 2022, the number had increased to over a million IDPs, though in a much larger conflict zone, as well as many whom had been forced to flee repeatedly as violence spread to their new areas of refuge. The improved security situation in some districts has, however, led to a mixed trend, as almost 350 thousand IDPs had reportedly returned to their area of origin, according to the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM). In May 2025, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimated that over 700 thousand people were still internally displaced, while 600 thousand who had previously been displaced had returned to their district of origin. Insurgents were reported to regularly encourage residents to leave the conflict zone prior to 2022, at times threatening to return and kill them if they didn't. This practice was reported to have happened again in 2025, though it appeared to have been a relatively rare occurrence during the year. One-sided violence has been common in connection to forced recruitment, including the forced recruitment of child soldiers, by the insurgents. IS in Mozambique regularly kidnapped people to work in their camps, and often forced women into sexual slavery. This practice, as well as forced recruitment, decreased greatly in the latter half of 2021, and many prisoners were released as the insurgents were reported to be running low on food in their bases. Several instances of forced recruitment, especially of children, was reported in early 2024, indicating that the practice began again as the insurgents appeared to be on better footing.
Towards the end of 2022, there were increasing signs that IS had shifted its strategy with regards to the civilian population in Mozambique. Reports emerged of the group paying for provisions, offering monetary support for people, and holding meetings with the population when entering villages; a sharp contrast to the previously commonplace atrocities and massacres. Combined with their fewer numbers and decreased freedom of operations, one-sided violence by IS in Mozambique decreased rapidly after 2021, with 2023 seeing the least one-sided violence since the insurgency started in 2017. The insurgents still regularly executed people, and conducted occasional massacres, though generally in a more targeted manner than previously, limiting themselves to murdering people suspected of being government or militia collaborators, those who violated tenants of their strict interpretation of Sharia law or who were Christians. IS use of one-sided violence increased again during 2024, causing nearly twice as many fatalities compared to the last year, despite a decrease in fatalities from clashes with government forces. The group started the year by propagandizing its killing of civilians as part of its participation in the global IS campaign called ‘kill them wherever you find them'. IS use of one-sided violence double for the second consecutive year in 2025, but still remained far below its previous peak in 2021.
Government forces have also employed one-sided violence against refugees fleeing the violence, against suspected collaborators and informants of the insurgents, and whilst committing robberies and extortion against civilians in the conflict zone, as well as against non-violent protesters. Since late 2020, the government has increasingly relied on local militias to provide security in Cabo Delgado, with many of these forces being formally legalized and incorporated into the Defense and Security Forces (FDS) in late 2021 under the name of Local Forces. The growth of pro-government militias with little or no government oversight, such as the Local Forces and Naparama (which had no legal standing or government oversight), has caused concern among human rights organizations, as the militias are known to have conducted extrajudicial executions over loose suspicions of being members of the IS insurgency. In 2024, government use of one-sided violence escalated dramatically as it cracked down on a protest movements seeking to end Frelimo's nearly 50 years rule. The results of the October 2024 elections, which according to official results gave victory to Frelimo's candidate, Daniel Chapo, with 65 percent of the vote, were disputed and declared fraudulent by second place candidate Venâncio Mondlane, who named himself the winner. Throughout the rest of the year, protests supporting Mondlane would be met with deadly violence by the police, killing nearly 300 people, the vast majority in one-sided violence perpetrated by the police. Protest violence in Mozambique decreased substantially in 2025, after a March agreement between Chapo and Mondlane which would provide reparations for the victims of government violence.
