Mozambique Town Deserted As ISIS Claims Control

ISIS-linked militants attacked the town on Wednesday, escalating an insurgency that has spread bloodily across northern Mozambique since 2017.

The key northern Mozambique town of Palma was all but deserted Monday, its residents fleeing by road, boat or on foot as the ISIS claimed control after a prolonged onslaught. ISIS-linked militants attacked the town on Wednesday, escalating an insurgency that has spread bloodily across northern Mozambique since 2017. Dozens of people, according to the ISIS and the authorities, were killed in what witnesses describe as a coordinated attack, and an unknown number were still missing. It is the closest raid yet to a multi-billion-dollar gas project being built on a peninsula just 10 kilometres (six miles) away, by France's Total and other energy giants.