Editor’s Note
This article examines the suspension of a major energy project in Mozambique by French company Total, highlighting the growing impact of Islamist insurgency in the region on international investment and development.
Under the threat of Islamist terrorism, the French oil company Total has had to suspend its participation in a gigantic exploitation project in Mozambique. Cabo Delgado, a northern province of this Southern African country, has become one of the main areas of jihadist activity on the continent. The organization Ansar Al-Sunna (AAS), better known as Al-Shabab, has been present in the area for years. But since the beginning of 2020, it has experienced exponential growth.
Last weekend, after a series of deadly attacks, Total, which is set to invest around 20 billion dollars to exploit one of these gas fields starting in 2024, decided to evacuate the 3,000 employees building the future complex.
After a new massacre by Al-Shabab in November, Emmanuel Macron called for “an international response” in a tweet. According to the site Africa Intelligence, Paris is already exchanging data and satellite imagery with Maputo. In neighboring countries, particularly South Africa, voices are pushing for regional engagement, with little effect.
For now, only military cooperation with the European Union is expected to be established in the coming months. According to the NGO Acled, 2,400 Mozambicans have been killed since 2017, half of them civilians. Furthermore, 530,000 people have been forced to leave their lands.
Founded in 2007 by students returning from Sudan and Saudi Arabia, AAS was originally a quietist religious movement. Gradually, it radicalized, advocating for the establishment of Sharia law, and turned into an armed group. Cabo Delgado, predominantly Muslim and neglected for decades by the central government, proved to be fertile ground for its development.
AAS carried out its first major action in October 2017. But it was in 2020 that it gained strength. According to the NGO Acled, half of the group’s 700 attacks were carried out last year. A consequence of its pledge of allegiance the previous year to the Islamic State (IS) group? This allegiance is mostly for show, although, according to Éric Morier-Genoud, a specialist in African history at Queen’s University Belfast, “it seems that IS has sent specialists to help the insurgents.” The researcher estimates their numbers at 2,000 or 3,000 men, volunteers or forcibly recruited, mostly Mozambicans.
Like ISIS, AAS is characterized by its extreme violence: in April, 52 youths from a village who refused to join them were beheaded.
Initially dismissing the insurgents as bandits, the Mozambican army is now overwhelmed to the point of calling on the South African private security companies Dyck Advisory Group and Paramount. But this remains insufficient to reverse the balance of power.
To ensure its security, Total, which has a protection contract with Maputo, relies on several hundred of these same soldiers. In its defense, the French company states that every soldier or police officer assigned to the site receives human rights training.
Will the American company ExxonMobil withdraw from Mozambique?