Mozambique’s most wanted man

A young footballer from the remote district of Palma is now on the US’s global terror list – and Mozambique’s
defence minister has promised to take him dead or alive. Meet Bonomado Machude Omar, the elusive leader of the Cabo Delgado insurgency.

A young footballer from the remote district of Palma is now on the US’s global terror list – and Mozambique’s
defence minister has promised to take him dead or alive. Meet Bonomado Machude Omar, the elusive leader of the Cabo Delgado insurgency.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In a report this week, the International Crisis Group described the Islamist insurgency in northern Mozambique, now in its fifth year, as “among the gravest threats to peace and security in Africa”. But the origin of
this threat, and the identity of the insurgents, have long been shrouded in mystery.
In this edition, The Continent profiles the insurgency’s most public figurehead – and the key to understanding their tactics and motivations

Luis Nhachote and Milda Quaria

His name is Bonomado Machude Omar, born in Palma district, in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique.
He’s been involved in the insurrection in Cabo Delgado since it started in 2017, and is now – according to the US State Department – the most prominent face of an insurgency that has crippled the region.
Last April, the head of Mozambique’s military, Cristóvão Chume, promised Omar “will be captured dead or alive”.
Chume is now the country’s defence minister. On 6 August last year, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken designated Omar as a member of the Islamic State and a “global terrorist”, in a public statement.
Described as both quiet and brutal, Omar served as a navy soldier in Mozambique’s defence force from 2003 to 2005. But he now wants to tear down the very state that he served, and replace it with a caliphate.

Who is Bonomado Machude Omar?

In an article in September 2020, Mozambique’s Centro de Jornalismo Investigativo (CJI) identified Bonomado Machude Omar, also called Omar Saide or Sheik Omar, as the speaker in a video which went viral in social media in March 2020. The speaker in the video claims to be a leader of the insurgency, which by that time had been going on for three years.
The following year, Mozambican think tank OMR published a further profile of the man – explaining how he was born in Palma in the village of Ncumbi, and moved to Mocímboa da Praia at the age of five after his father died. His mother remarried, and Omar’s stepfather introduced him to Islam, which he studied and mastered. He finished 10th
grade at Januário Pedro High School in Mocímboa da Praia and, according to former teachers, was a calm young man, a good student, and a good football player

Described as both quiet and brutal, Omar served as a navy soldier in Mozambique’s defence force from 2003 to 2005. But he now wants to tear down the very state that he served, and replace it with a caliphate.

After leaving school, he served in the navy in Pemba, and then moved to an African Muslim boarding school to finish
12th grade. He was popular among his peers, known for his sense of justice and protection of the younger ones. One of his hobbies was playing football. Due to his height, between 1.80m and 1.90m, and the fact that he played in midfield, he acquired the nickname of Patrick Vieira, the French footballer who made his name at Arsenal.
He made a living selling vegetables and Muslim clothing at a market in Pemba, on behalf of a foreign merchant, who is said to have been either Tanzanian or Somali.
He travelled to Tanzania and South Africa. He then returned to Mocímboa da Praia, where he built a mosque, as well
as a stall for the sale of trinkets acquired in Tanzanian markets or in the city of Pemba.
Then he participated in the first attacks on Mocímboa da Praia in October 2017, and took refuge in the bush. It is still
unclear how he became radicalised, or what prompted the turn to violence.
For his military skill and camouflage ability he acquired locally the nickname “King of the Forest”. He is, the OMR
thinktank says, currently the leader of the insurgents in Mozambique – something confirmed by the US Department of State statement last year, which describes him also as being “the lead facilitator and communications conduit for the group”.

Promise to the people

Bonomado led the insurgency’s attacks on Palma in March 2021, and on Mocímboa da Praia a year before. Both towns have since been retaken by Mozambique’s military with the help of the Rwandan Defence Force; Mozambique was unable to hold or retake them on its own. It was after the fall of Mocímboa
in 2020 that Bonomado made his now famous speech, recorded on a cameraphone and distributed far and wide. It gives a sense of his motivations. Standing in front of the town’s police station – a potent symbol of state power
that had fallen to the jihadis – Bonomado told the local population that they would not kill anyone or steal from the people, despite facing opposition from them.
“We know that your will was for us to disappear,” he told the crowd. “But God has blessed us and we have gained more strength. “We came the first time, we’re back, this is the second time, we’re giving you another chance; we’re not going to kill anyone, we’re not going to destroy anything that belongs to the people, everything we spoil will be the government’s,” he said. “We occupy to show that the government today is unfair. It humiliates the poor and gives advantage to the bosses. It’s the lower class who get detained, so that’s not justice,” he continued.
He said his group was working for an Islamic government – and emphasised that “we are children from here, and these faces are not new. There are so many of us in the bush.”
Despite his noble words, the insurgents have been implicated in multiple brutal massacres of civilian populations – just like the security forces they are fighting.
And Omar, according to one source with an intimate knowledge of the group’s operations, plays a leading role in
commanding military operations. The insurgents are divided into as many as 30 smaller groups which each
having their own specialisation, such as bomb-making, tunnel-boring, and intelligence-gathering, and the leaders of
each group report to Omar.
The group finances its activities through mineral smuggling and drug trafficking, and this too allegedly runs
through him, the source said.
Due to the shadowy nature of the insurgent group, Omar could not be reached for comment.

A new Dhlakama?

Since that day in Mocímboa in 2020 – and the fall of Palma in March 2021 – the Mozambique government, with the help in particular of troops from Rwanda, have got back on the front foot. The towns have been retaken, and Omar is thought to be moving from base to base, as troops from Mozambique, Rwanda, and the SADC mission in Mozambique dismantle bases that they find.
But the appeal of Omar and his men to the dispossessed of Cabo Delgado remains a danger, warns Mozambican
researcher João Feijó, the author of the OMR think tank’s report on Omar and other leading insurgents.
“Various testimonies describe him both as someone sinister and brutal, but also with a sense of justice,” Feijó told The Continent in an interview last week. “There are several factors that produce this type of leaders: radicalisation
through studies in madrasas, revolt with the concrete experience of poverty and marginalisation and even opportunism, which takes advantage of the desperation of communities,” Feijó said.
“I draw a parallel with Afonso Dhlakama,” Feijó added, referring to the late leader of the Mozambican resistance
movement and later opposition party, Renamo. “He was the protagonist of a civil war tearing up the country, but he
attracted crowds and was very popular.”
The success of such populists underlines the need for any solution to the conflict to include social inclusion, and
meeting the basic needs of communities.
“I am not against defence and security solutions, but this approach must be accompanied by the creation of jobs for young people, the provision of basic social services, respect for human rights and incentives for the democratic
participation of communities in the political and economic life of the country,” Feijó said. ■

This article was original published at The Continent