Mozambican police are looking for Tanzanian national Amisse Bacar who is suspected of being the ringleader of a group allegedly recruiting young Mozambicans into an Islamist insurgency cell that has killed over 100 people in the northern parts of the country, police chief Bernadino Rafael said on Thursday.
Rafael is quoted by state-controlled Radio Mozambique as saying that Bacar is suspected of recruiting young Mozambicans in Cabo Delgado province, a region on the border with Tanzania where multi-national firms are developing one of the biggest gas finds in a decade.
“The defence and security forces are looking for Amisse Bakar… He’s a Tanzanian and he’s one of those who recruit our young people to enter the world of crime,” Rafael said in Mecula district in the neighbouring Niassa province.
Suspected Islamist terrorists have since last year attacked parts of Cabo Delgado, with a view to impose a radical form of Islam as an antidote to what they regards as corrupt, elitist rule that has broadened gaping inequality in the region.
The group behind the attacks goes by the name Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jama or “followers of the prophetic tradition.”
CM/jn/APA