The disturbing new images show the aftermath of a bloody ISIS terrorist attack in the African country of Mozambique last month.
An image, published by Sky News Monday, shows fires burning in the strategic northern city of Palma. Others show sheets and other items arranged on the ground to spell “HELP” and “SOS” so that they can be seen by rescue helicopters.
Still, others show overturned and damaged cars that appear to have been ambushed as their occupants desperately tried to flee.
The BBC reported on Monday, citing the Mozambican army, that Palma had been recovered and a “significant” number of terrorists killed.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the March 24 attack, according to the SITE’s extremist surveillance group. His claim alleged that the Islamic State in the province of Central Africa controlled the banks of Palmas, government offices, factories and army barracks, and that more than 55 people were killed, including army troops. of Mozambique, Christians and foreigners.
Meanwhile, the director of the Dyck Advisory Group, a private military company hired by Mozambican police to help fight the rebels, described “fighting on the street, in the pockets of the whole city.”
“My guys fly in the air and they’ve hired several small groups and they’ve hired a pretty big group,” Dyck told the Associated Press last week. “They have landed in the fight to recover a couple of injured policemen. … We also rescued many people who were trapped, in the end 220 people were counted. “
Dyck added that his fighters had described seeing “truck drivers carrying rations to Palma. Their bodies were next to the trucks. They had their heads off.”
Survivors have reported that heavily armed terrorists stormed the cities in distinctive uniforms with red scarves on their heads.
“I was running to save my life … they were coming from all the streets,” survivor Luisa Jose, 52, told Reuters. “I saw them with bazookas.”
Palma, a city of about 70,000 less than 20 miles from the border with Tanzania, is close to an oil and natural gas production site operated by the French energy company Total. Sky News reported that the facility has been handed over to the military, while Total personnel have been evacuated from the area.
Cabo Delgado, the province where Palma is located, has been the nerve center of the Islamist insurgency since 2017 and observers fear the latest attack will be a sign of terrorists’ ambition to spread their insurgency across the country .