[AlAhram] Suspected Islamists have killed seven people in northern Mozambique in weekend attacks, threatening aid to victims of Cyclone Kenneth and paralysing ongoing voter registration for October elections, local sources said on Monday.| That is probably the group referred to variously as al-Shabaab, Ansar al-Sunnah, or Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jamo, but mostly by the generic descriptor “suspected Islamists”.. |
Between Friday and Sunday at least four separate villages were attacked in northern Cabo Delgado, local sources said.
"Armed men invaded the district of Meluco, specifically the village of Minhanha, killed three people, and burned about 100 houses on Sunday night," a local source, who did not want to be identified fearing retaliation, told AFP.
Sunday's attack followed another on Saturday that killed a teacher riding a cycle of violence and three other people who were burned to death in Macomia district.
The attacks were the first since Cyclone Kenneth smashed into the country's northern region on April 25, leaving at least 41 dead and more than 240,000 affected.
The delivery of aid to cyclone-hit areas has been underway, but the attacks put aid distribution at risk while they "paralysed" voter registration.
"Insurgents invaded the villages of Iba and Ipho, in the district of Macomia," Magda Mendonca from the Public Integrity Center, an anti-corruption NGO that is also an election observer, told AFP.
Mendonca said the attackers "plundered property without causing human casualties," but added they "paralysed an ongoing voter registration."
"The successive attacks are disturbing the voter registration process in the region," Mendonca said.
General elections are scheduled for October 15.
On Friday, suspected Islamists also attacked another registration centre in the city of Nacate, also in the Macomia district.
According to local sources, "the button men vandalised equipment without causing human casualties."
Macomia was hit by the second cyclone to strike Mozambique in six weeks, after Cyclone Idai which killed more than 600 in the central parts of the country.
an Islamic infestation centering on Somalia...
[Libya Herald] The son of a former Sudanese Islamist leader is reported to have been killed fighting for the 
For those who analyze the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the events of the last year have been remarkably revealing. The drive towards consolidation of power and influence by predominant insurgent organizations has created unprecedented internal friction and has demonstratedquite vividly at timesthat the Sunni militants at war with the U.S. and Iraqi governments are far from a monolithic threat. Indeed, these groups often are markedly distinct from each otherstructurally, ideologically, and politically. Under public pressure from fellow Sunni insurgents, Al-Qaidas network in Iraq has been forced into constantly attempting to justify and defend its use of suicide bombings and foreign fighters. The growing backlash against Al-Qaidas network in Iraq represents the first real crack within the Sunni insurgency, and is likely the best available opportunity to leverage homegrown Iraqi Sunni nationalism against the countervailing forces of transnational Salafi jihadists. Yet, at least as of now, it is still not clear if the U.S. and Iraqi governments fully understand this opportunity, nor if they are doing their utmost to take advantage of it. To successfully end the insurgency in Iraq, the U.S. must reach an understanding with not only tribal elements, but local Sunni political and religious forces as well.