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The US Army Special Forces will train Mozambican Marines over the next two months to contain the spread of al-Shabab.
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This happened after the United States listed the group as a foreign terrorist organization last week because of its ties to ISIS.
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Violence in Cabo Delgado province, in the far north, caused 2,000 deaths and displaced 670,000 people.
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The elite Green Berets were deployed to help defeat ISIS insurgents accused of beheading children as young as 11 in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique.
US Army Special Forces soldiers will train Mozambican Marines over the next two months to stem the rapid escalation of the ISIS-linked terrorist group al-Shabab.
This happened after the U.S. officially listed the group as a foreign terrorist organization last week because of its ties to ISIS, which it swore allegiance to in 2018 and which claimed its first attack in June 2019.
Mozambique, in southern Africa, represents the worrying spread of the Islamic insurgency on the continent. Other nations facing ISIS-related violence include Somalia, Nigeria, Niger, Mali and Libya.
The posting of the Green Berets is “to prevent the spread of terrorism and violent extremism,” said the United States Embassy in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, according to The Times.
According to an Insider report last month, Green Berets are called upon to deploy worldwide, build lasting relationships with local groups that are friendly to the United States and then teach these groups how to kill effectively. The SF soldiers then start to do missions with the locals and fight side by side.
The situation in the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado, which started in 2017, became even more urgent last year, with some 3,500 fighters regularly engaged with the military to capture important cities.
At least 2,000 civilians have been killed, according to the Armed Conflict and Event Data Project, and 670,000 have been displaced, Save the Children added. About a million people also need food aid, the UN estimated.
‘They took my eldest son and beheaded him’
Children as young as 11 were executed, according to Save the Children, who spoke to displaced families who described horrific executions by Islamic insurgents.
One mother, Elsa, 28, whose name was changed, told Save the Children: “That night, our village was attacked and houses were burned. When it started, I was at home with my four children.
“We tried to escape to the forest, but they took my eldest son and beheaded him. We couldn’t do anything because we would be killed too.”
Impoverished Mozambique, in southern Africa, had foreign mercenaries, mainly from South Africa, who were also accused of human rights violations.
An Amnesty International report concluded that both sides committed war crimes, with government forces responsible for abuses against civilians, something they denied.
Cabo Delgado has a population of 2.3 million, the majority Muslim, and is one of the poorest provinces in Mozambique, with high rates of illiteracy and unemployment, according to the BBC.
Al-Shabab, which is not to be confused with the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia of similar name, stands for Youth in Arabic.
She found ready recruits among the unemployed youth in the area, Al-Jazeera reported.
Although a ruby deposit and a gas field were discovered in Cabo Delgado in 2009 and 2010, creating dreams of a better life for locals, these were soon undermined by violence and extreme flooding, the BBC noted.
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