Mozambique: Islamic State-Linked Jihadis Launch Multiple Attacks Throughout September

On September 3, Islamic State-linked jihadis attacked a safari camp in northern Mozambique’s Niassa province, killing one person, abducting workers, and forcing thousands of people to flee the surrounding area. The attack took place in the Marangira area of Marrupa district, near the border with Cabo Delgado, where Mozambique has faced an Islamic State-linked insurgency since 2017.

The jihadis targeted the Mozambique Wild Adventures hunting camp and surrounding infrastructure, killing one woman, injuring many others and burning several vehicles. Mozambican police reported that at least 11 people, including children, were abducted during the attack. South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation told the Associated Press that up to 20 workers were abducted. The department said a 30-year-old South African man was among those taken. The independent conflict-monitoring organization ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data) separately recorded 13 camp staff as unaccounted for after the attack, and reported that at least 2,700 residents fled the area and are now displaced from their homes.

Mozambique’s state news agency, citing provincial government information, reported that the attackers looted and burned the hunting camp and damaged a health center, police post and telecommunications infrastructure. The jihadis also took vehicles from the area.

Local authorities evacuated at least three U.S. citizens from the wildlife reserve after the attack. The U.S. Embassy in Mozambique acknowledged the attack, and issued warnings covering the Niassa Special Reserve and areas near the Niassa-Cabo Delgado border.

Peter Bofin, a regional expert with ACLED, told the Associated Press that the operation represented the group’s first recorded incursion into Niassa since May 2025. Bofin described the raid as probably isolated, rather than evidence of a sustained Islamic State Mozambique (ISM) presence in the province, while noting that it demonstrated the jihadis’ ability to move through rural areas.

ISM has continued to carry out attacks and abductions in Cabo Delgado, the province where the insurgency began. ACLED reported that jihadis abducted residents in Mocímboa da Praia during August, although local sources gave different estimates of the number of people taken. The outfit also abducted fishers near the coast, with ACLED recording dozens of fishers taken during a wider series of incidents; sources are yet to establish whether these abductions sought ransom payments or aimed at forced recruitment, as these are the two prime reasons of abductions in this region. The September 3 raid marked a recorded ISM incursion in the country, as the terror outfit had planned and then executed more violence throughout September.

On September 14, ISM jihadis abducted four civilians in the Madumu area of Nangade district in Cabo Delgado, according to ACLED data published through the International Organization for Migration’s Foresight platform. The civilians were hunting when the jihadis seized them. The attackers released three after they paid between 1,000 and 15,000 meticais. The jihadis identified the fourth victim as a member of the Local Forces, and killed him. Authorities found his dismembered body the following day.

More violence followed in Muidumbe district on September 22. Local sources reported that suspected jihadis killed four people and abducted at least eight others in the Naneve area of Nangunde village, where residents were producing nipa, a locally made alcoholic drink. The Islamic jihadis surrounded the group, ordered them to accompany them for less than a kilometer, and then shot two men. They killed two more men just because they were too intoxicated and unable to run. The whereabouts of the abducted victims remained unknown. Local sources separately reported that jihadis abducted six people from Xitaxi village on September 21, bringing the reported number of abducted people in the two incidents to 14.

The latest incidents form part of a wider deterioration in security in Cabo Delgado. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said more than 400 conflict-related incidents occurred in the province during the first six months of 2026, up 10% from the same period in 2025. The incidents included killings, destruction of homes, looting, and abductions. OCHA also reported that armed groups increasingly use abductions to obtain ransom payments and recruit people by force, including children.

The United Nations has also recorded continued population displacement linked to armed violence. OCHA reported that at least 29,564 people left their areas of origin because of armed violence between January and August 2026, with women and children accounting for about 79% of those displaced. The series of recent Islamic jihad attacks in Niassa and Cabo Delgado therefore occurred amid an ongoing pattern of armed attacks, abductions, and civilian displacement in northern Mozambique.