Last week, the United States listed the ‘al-Shabab’ group in Mozambique as a foreign terrorist organisation because of its alleged links to ISIS. Now, US Army Special Forces are to train Mozambican marines for the next two months in an apparent effort to counter ‘al-Shabab’.

News24 reports that the US elite Green Berets have been deployed to help defeat fighters in Mozambique who have recently been accused of beheading children as young as 11 in Cabo Delgado. The US Embassy in Maputo said that the deployment of the Green Berets is “to prevent the spread of terrorism and violent extremism.” Mozambican marines are to be trained by US Army Special Forces soldiers for the next two months, teaching them how to ‘kill effectively’, before engaging in battling fighters alongside them.

Save the Children reports that children as young as 11 years old have been executed. One mother reportedly told Save the Children: “We tried to escape to the woods, but they took my eldest son and beheaded him. We couldn’t do anything because we would be killed too.”

Cabo Delgado has a population of 2.3 million, most of whom are Muslim. According to News24, up to 3 500 fighters frequently engage with the military to capture key towns.

Violence in the province has reportedly resulted in the death of 2 000 people, with a further 670 000 displaced. Around a million people are reported to be in need of food aid. According to News24, Somalia, Nigeria, Niger, Mali, and Libya also face so called ISIS-linked violence.

Umm Muhammed Umar