Musty salt air crept at dusk over the nets and moored boats on northern Mozambique?s coast as seven armed and uniformed men marched into the fishing community last month, demanding the keys to the mosque.

Once inside, they commanded ? over the microphone used for the call to prayer ? that locals on the edge of the port town of Mocimboa da Praia come to listen.

It was only when they unfurled an ISIS banner, the mosque?s imam Sumail Issa told CNN, that it became clear who they were. Also palpable was the new-found confidence of the jihadists, emerging in recent months after the chaotic collapse of US aid funding to one of Africa?s poorest countries.

?When they called everyone over, as soon as they saw that flag, a colleague and I left, saying we needed the toilet,? Issa said, adding they went to notify the military.

The men?s faces were exposed, video posted to social media reveals, and the speech one of them gave was considered ? delivering a highly localized manifesto, showing both ambition and independence from other ISIS franchises, analysts have noted.

Locals didn?t flee but attentively filmed, the social media video shows. ISIS had made their point about where they could roam, unopposed.

Mozambique?s gas-rich northern Cabo Delgado region has been ravaged by eight years of killing and land grabs. The insurgents seized control of this coastal town from August 2020 to August 2021, resulting in significant displacement and damage. Four years followed during which Mozambican and Rwandan forces ? acting under invitation from Maputo ? restored partial order, and Western governments surged aid into the region. Many of those who had fled the violence returned.

However, the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) under an executive order from President Donald Trump in January cut some assistance entirely, and drastically reduced other programs, some of which were aimed at boosting the central government?s presence and curbing extremism.

On September 7, ISIS began a strident offensive again, hitting its former stronghold of Mocimboa da Praia, beheading dozens of mostly Christian men over the course of several weeks, and triggering the flight of tens of thousands of residents.

ISIS violence is surging in Africa, where 79% of the militant Islamist group?s global activity occurred between January and October this year, according to analysis by Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED). ISIS activity in Mozambique peaked in October, now responsible for 11% of its violent actions globally, ACLED said.

Over two months, CNN interviewed at least a dozen former USAID officials, dependent contractors, or aid workers and examined extensive internal documentation of USAID?s work in Mozambique, to assess the full impact of the USAID shutdown on one of Africa?s most vulnerable states.

Insurgency fueled by ?extreme poverty?

Mozambique ? where more than half the population lives under the poverty line and the average age is 17 ? had been particularly dependent on USAID. The $586 million given by USAID in 2024 amounted to about 3% of the country?s GDP.

The funding, which according to documents seen by CNN retained just over $2.4 billion in ongoing or future projects when it was shuttered, provided emergency food aid, water supplies, education and local government support. HIV/AIDS medication was also funded and remains partially so, to a reported $160 million.

USAID also funded projects aimed at reducing ISIS? ability to recruit. In Mocimboa da Praia, two grants supported projects targeting motorcycle taxi drivers and fishermen ? areas of employment where poverty and a lack of opportunity make young men easy prey for the insurgency, according to USAID analysis.

A former senior USAID official told CNN: ?The abrupt end of USAID programs ? opened the door for insurgents to act with greater freedom and impunity.? Studies commissioned by USAID showed the Mozambique insurgency was ultimately fueled by ?extreme poverty and marginalization, including an absolute lack of basic services like health and education,? said the former official, who didn?t want to be identified discussing sensitive areas of US policy.

The former official said USAID was ?working directly to tackle those root causes? ? feeding the displaced, helping local officials with schools and health clinics, and assisting young people in finding work.

?When those efforts suddenly stopped? it created a vacuum, as well as increased vulnerability and desperation. That vacuum gave insurgents more space to operate, whether through violence or by trying to win over local communities,? the former official said.

A State Department spokesperson said in a statement that the US government had continued to provide assistance this year in Mozambique, ?a majority of which was life-saving food and nutrition assistance.? The spokesperson said foreign assistance was ?constantly under review to ensure it meets the needs of the receiving country and the priorities of the United States.?

The State Department did not respond to CNN?s questions about the resurgence of ISIS following the withdrawal of US aid. Its statement added: ?The United States continues to be the most generous nation in the world. This Administration is significantly enhancing the efficiency and strategic impact of foreign assistance programs around the world. We call on other nations to increase in burden sharing globally.?

Lost opportunities

Mocimboa da Praia is peppered with signs of international aid now interrupted. A hospital, its wards partially deserted as so many residents have fled the town with the recent surge in violence, received USAID funding via the local ministry of health. It let up to 15 staffers go initially when the money stopped. There is a lack of painkillers and anesthetics, the deputy director of the hospital, Dr. Orlando Colete, said.

In the market, a sense of frustration at vanished opportunities overflows. Motorcycle taxis are a vibrant part of the community, ferrying goods and people around town, but are also targets of ISIS recruitment ? their skills equally useful to the insurgency. Aid worker Khamissa Fabaio ran a project, funded by USAID and implemented by international development contractor DAI, which provided vests, helmets and help with paperwork to the ?mototaxistas,? improving their livelihood and hopefully steering them away from the insurgency.

Anger explodes among the crowd of marketgoers when CNN, accompanied by Fabaio, asks about people?s future prospects without aid. ?You?re offending me, things in my house are my business,? shouts one man.

?The only way to stop the insurgency is to continue with this funding,? said Fabaio. ?It is true that this will not solve the whole problem, but at least it keeps young people busy. Those who go into the jungle (to join the insurgents) do so because they want to save themselves. It?s utter despair.?

Fabaio said he had approached some insurgents, whose identities are known in the community, to join his project, and he pleaded for renewed international funding.

?That money has benefited us greatly. President Trump is a man who has to have a heart. Not all Mozambicans are corrupt; not all Africans are corrupt.? The project was halted in February with the USAID stop-work order.

Help for fishermen

Another project implemented by DAI, costing $70,000 over four months last year and due to continue into this, gave support to local fishermen. The idyllic coastline is littered with rickety boats that provide the main source of income for many.

The DAI project, part of a $24 million grant for local government assistance, USAID documents show, gave fishermen help with nets, motors and paperwork through a local group, while also monitoring them for early-warning signs of ISIS recruitment.

The group would watch out for fishing boats that did not return, perhaps because the men on board had been kidnapped by ISIS, local development worker Cadumo Sufo said. Most fisherman ?are young, within the age range they hunt for recruitment,? he said. ISIS fighters are never far away. The mosque where they gave their speech on October 7 is just 900 meters (984 yards) along the bay.

The violence of the past eight years is so pervasive that its impact seems almost universal. Sufo?s fight to interrupt ISIS is acutely personal. More than six years ago, his two sons and daughter were kidnapped by the group and only the daughter has since escaped.

?When I say their names, I immediately remember my children, and I don?t feel good about it. I have nothing to say, just that the situation happened, and how sad it is for me? at this age.?

?They cut off his head?

The town?s peripheries show its losses most clearly, the Christian neighborhood of Filipe Nyusi now an empty husk after ISIS night raids caused the community to flee. In early September, small groups of insurgents would trek across the fields into the community and knock on specific doors, survivors said, calling by name on those they had heard were wealthy.

One was Albano Nkwemba, 50, a security guard for local electric facilities. The CNN team was led to his home by his brother-in-law, Rafael Ndinengo, who was still visibly shaken as he walked past dozens of homes bereft of signs of life, poorly secured doors banging in the empty wind.

Ndinengo re-enacts the scene of Nkwemba?s death, outside a tiny mud-brick home, where USAID food sacks sit, their contents half-eaten on the wall. ?He was tied up,? Ndinengo said, putting his arms behind his back, ?and they took a stick and beat him. They cut off his head and put it on his bottom.?

He shows us the scene of another beheading, where he says a head was left on display. A total of eight men were killed in the raids, seven of whom were beheaded.

Nkwemba?s surviving family fled to the outskirts of Mueda, where they live in a rented house, desperately short of funds.

His wife, Germane Chiete, described how insurgents asked for her husband by name, leading the family to believe they had been helped by other locals.

?I kept quiet and they took me outside and beat me; I fell to the ground and they lifted me up. ?You have to give us money,? they said. After tying me up, they took me into the living room, laid me on the floor, while my husband was taken to the yard. They started praying, and then I heard the sound of a jet of blood.?

Mueda, a garrison town patrolled by tiny groups of military personnel, used to be a hub for aid efforts. After the USAID shutdown, international aid workers say, up to a dozen of their number suddenly left, and their offices closed.

Outside the town?s secure bubble, sprawling camps for the estimated 93,000 people displaced by the ISIS campaign struggle to meet their new burden.

Lianda displacement camp is among the more organized, yet there the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), which received nearly half its Mozambique funding from USAID, provides only emergency food relief for newcomers, hoping to see them through a month.

Anouk Renard, NRC?s area manager, said: ?Even before the USAID stopped, this was already an underfunded crisis. US funding was cut abruptly? So, we had some water provision in the camps that stopped. Some food distributions were suspended.?

The United Nations? Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan for the conflict-stricken Cabo Delgado region initially requested $352 million from donors for 2025, later adjusting its target down to $126 million due to funding cuts. As of October, the UN says it has received $73.2 million, about a fifth of the original target, with only $3.5 million of that from the United States.

In late September, the US State Department pledged another $18 million in humanitarian aid for Cabo Delgado, according to Federica Zelada, a spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP). The United States, mostly through USAID, provided $98 million to the same appeal in 2024, $101 million in 2023, and $174.9 million in 2022, according to the UN.

Aid workers spoke broadly of the damaging impact not only of USAID cuts, but also of reduced contributions from other Western donors.

Maria Riabinina, a donor relations officer with the WFP, said the UN agency was helping around a million people in Mozambique at the start of 2024, but because of limited resources had to reduce the number to around 345,000. ?2026 looks very bleak at this point and (there?s) no clarity on what extent we will be able to continue the assistance,? she added.

Ulrika Blom, NRC?s country director for Mozambique, called the aid it was able to provide an ?emergency response, the response that is given to newly displaced people that are in extreme stress. It is limited funding, and we see now that we cannot help them, and it?s very, very stressful.?

Meanwhile Nicholas Wasunna, of UN children?s agency UNICEF, said the cuts meant ?we have to make very tough choices. This means we focus on life saving, as opposed to more of the wider livelihoods.?

Gas fields

Yet within an hour?s drive of this expanding crisis lies the potential for extraordinary wealth that could transform Mozambique: liquid natural gas (LNG) fields located off the coast of nearby Palma town, itself also wracked by insurgent violence, and increasingly surrounded by private security firms hoping to isolate the hydrocarbon wealth from the chaos of ISIS?s campaign.

Both French giant Total Energies and US behemoth Exxon Mobil have invested heavily in the planned Afungi plants near Palma. Protected by heavy fencing, their development has been delayed by years because of the region?s insecurity, including an insurgent attack on the town in 2021 that killed dozens, including foreign workers.

Yet in late October, Total Energies said it could soon lift its declaration of ?force majeure? ? a technical term used to describe unanticipated events that might grant relief from contractual obligations ? suggesting progress in the field?s development might be nearer. Exxon Mobil has said it will decide whether to progress with its project next year.

The Trump administration, while massively reducing aid to Mozambique, has invested in the potential of the Afungi project. The US Export-Import Bank in March loaned $4.7 billion to Mozambique?s LNG entity, to enable it to hire US-based expertise to complete the project.

Yet the challenges of launching a complex, multi-billion-dollar gas plant, in the shadow of a spiraling insurgency that has openly stated its desire to disrupt the project, are mounting. (CNN)

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