An article from the BBC on 2nd June reports that attacks by young Islamist militants in northern Mozambique are fuelled by a mix of poverty and corruption and In the most recent attack, 10 people were decapitated with machetes in Palma district in the country’s northerly Cabo Delgado province. More than 300 people have been detained by the police and army since the first attack in the port town Mocimboa da Praia on October 2017. Coastal northern Mozambique has a long history of trade and movement of people with the rest of East Africa, and people in this area are traditionally Muslim. Mozambique has become increasingly corrupt in recent years and its coastal north has become a major centre for ivory, timber, heroin and ruby smuggling – with the involvement of police and other government officials and local smuggling barons incorporated militant young men into their networks and paid them well. Using incomes made from smuggling, religious networks, and people-traffickers, extremist cells paid to send young men to Tanzania, Kenya and Somalia for military and Islamic training and the income also helped bring radical clerics to Mozambique.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-44320531?src=ilaw
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