Mozambique und Djihadisten:

[Quintus Fabius]

Ein Artikel über die Vernetzung von Islamisten, Organisierter Kriminalität, mafiösen Staatsstrukturen und den Chinesen:

https://warontherocks.com/2021/09/al-sha...ozambique/

Al-Shabaab and Chinese Trade Practices in Mozambique

In 2020, eight Mozambican public officials and one Chinese national named Zhao were arrested for illegally harvesting and exporting timber from Cabo Delgado — Mozambique’s northernmost province — to China. According to local reports, five of the Mozambicans are awaiting trial while Zhao and three Mozambicans have been released, and the seized wood was returned to Zhao personally.

Chinese manufacturing firms’ appetite for commodities drives people like Zhao to seek their fortunes in vulnerable communities around the world. Frequently, local elites find it in their interest to enable these firms’ engagement in illegal business practices. During a fieldwork visit to the region in July, for instance, local officials in Cabo Delgado’s district of Montepuez described how Chinese timber traders flouted local laws with impunity. This type of sentiment can be found not just across the rest of Mozambique, but across Africa and around the world.

Illegal Chinese business practices in Cabo Delgado are making the province less safe. Cabo Delgado is home to an Islamist insurgency known as al-Shabaab (or Ahlu-Sunnah Wa-Jama, not to be confused with the al-Shabaab in Somalia) that has killed at least 3,000 people since October 2017. The illegal timber trade is exacerbating the conflict because it provides a valuable source of income to the insurgency, and it fuels discontent in the surrounding areas that the insurgency can feed off — namely labor abuses, lost livelihoods from deforestation, and increased vulnerability to severe weather.