MAPUTO: Suspected jihadists wielding knives and machetes killed five people in a Mozambique region that has been rocked by attacks blamed on radical Islamists, police said on Thursday.

Cabo Delgado, a northern province expected to become the centre of a natural gas industry after several promising discoveries, has seen a string of assaults on security forces and civilians since October.

“There was one more attack (by) the same group that has been attacking the neighbouring villages, (it) attacked a village on Wed­nesday around 9pm and killed five and destroyed houses and left running,” a police source said. The attackers targeted Nama­luco village in the Quissanga district of Cabo Delgado.

Police believe the same group also hacked seven people to death in another village in the region on Tuesday after beheading 10 people in another settlement on May 27. “The strategy of the group is to attack different villages over several days, confusing the strategic response of government forces,” added the police source.

The May 27 bloodshed occurred in two small villages close to the border with Tanzania and not far from Palma, a small town gearing up to be the country’s new natural gas hub in Cabo Delgado.

In October, armed men targeted a police station and military post in the regional town of Mocimboa da Praia in what was believed to be the first jihadist attack on the country. Two officers died and 14 attackers were killed.

“It is an alarming deterioration. It has contributed to a climate of uncertainty and fear in Cabo Delgado,” said Alex Vines, a Mozambique expert at the London-based Chatham House think-tank. “International investors are asking questions about the ability of the Mozambican authorities to both contain and counter this emerging problem.”

The group, often descri­bed by locals and officials as “Al-Shabaab”, has no known link to the Somali jihadist group of the same name.

The increase in attacks in the north of the country could pose serious issues for Mozambique, which holds general elections next year and is hoping for a bonanza from the recently-discovered gas reserves.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2018