KAMPALA, Uganda: Islamic State was collapsing in Iraq and Syria, but a jihadist appeared on YouTube from the jungle in eastern Congo to declare the caliphate 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 carried a large machine gun and a shoulder bag, flanked by a small group of striped fighters under a dense forest canopy. “I swear to God this is the residence of the Islamic State.”
Analysts largely dismissed the video as an attempt by the collapsed terrorist group to get headlines. But three years after its issuance, the little-known Central African province of the Islamic State has expanded so rapidly that the U.S. State Department last month imposed sanctions on the group and its leadership for the first time.
In late March, hundreds of group fighters in Mozambique occupied a key port city after a long siege of days in which they massacred dozens of people and sent thousands of people to run for their lives through forests and mangroves. The attack forced the large French oil company Total SE to evacuate all its staff from the $ 16 billion project along with 2,000 refugees.
Known as Iscap, the militant gang based in Congo and Mozambique, once fighting for central government autonomy, has this year become one of the terrorist group’s deadliest franchises, according to the intelligence tracker SITE, which controls extremist groups worldwide. Led by a veteran Ugandan jihadist, Musa Baluku, the Congolese militia formerly known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), killed more than 849 civilians in 2020 alone, the State Department said.