KAMPALA, Uganda – The Islamic State was collapsing in Iraq and Syria, but in the jungles of eastern Congo, a jihadist appeared on YouTube to declare that the caliphate was regrouping in Central Africa.
“I call on all Muslims in the world to join us in the Congo,” said the man, who identified himself as an Arab and wore an oversized machine gun and bandit, flanked by a small group of ragtag fighters under a dense canopy. of the forest. “I swear to God this is the home of the Islamic State.”
The video was largely rejected by analysts as an attempt by the collapsing terrorist group to win titles. But three years after it aired, the little-known Central African province of Islamic State has expanded so rapidly that the US State Department last month imposed sanctions on the group and its leadership for the first time.
In late March, hundreds of Mozambican group fighters occupied a key port city after a several-day siege in which they massacred dozens of people and sent thousands of people running for their lives through forests and swamps. The attack forced the majority of French oil company Total SE to evacuate all its employees from the $ 16 billion project along with 2,000 refugees.
Known as Iscap, the militant group in Congo and Mozambique that once fought for autonomy from the central government has become one of the terrorist group’s deadliest franchises this year, according to the SITE tracker, which monitors extremist groups globally. Led by a veteran Ugandan jihadist, Musa Baluku, the Congolese militia formerly known as the Allied Democratic Forces or ADF, killed more than 849 civilians in 2020 alone, the State Department said.