The war outside the fence

Good afternoon. At least 22 people have been killed in the past fortnight in the low-lying farmland of Cabo Delgado's Muidumbe and Mueda districts. Islamic State has claimed 14 of those deaths and described its victims as Christians.

The killings fit a pattern. Since the battle for the insurgents' Catupa base in Macomia district began in June, the defence forces have looked increasingly passive, and the insurgents have used the space. Groups of fighters broke away south and west. One of them spent around two months in Montepuez district. Troops clashed with it at least three times and tried to close the R698 road between Montepuez and Mueda. It slipped into Niassa province anyway, attacked a hunting camp at Marangira in September, and made its way back east.

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Proximity to the army offers little protection either. Last month insurgents struck around Chai and Litamanda in Macomia, and blocked the N380 between the two villages, a few kilometres from Rwandan and Mozambican positions. There was no visible response.

In Muidumbe and Mueda, the burden has fallen on the Local Force militia. A 2023 decree brought it into the structure of the armed forces and obliged the government to supply it with weapons, ammunition and allowances. In practice its fighters have repeatedly run short of ammunition, and their allowances arrive months late. Four women released by the insurgents near Muatide told security forces that their captors used binoculars and a drone to steer around Local Force patrols. A part-time militia with rifles is poorly equipped to fight that kind of enemy.