Security within Insecurity? Unpacking the Complexities of Salafi–Jihādi Extremism, Jihādi Provision and Governance in Southern Africa: Insights from Cabo Delgado
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12700/jceeas.2026.6.2.463Keywords:
Ansar al-Sunna, Northern Mozambique, Rebelocracy, Salafi–Jihādi governance, Security within InsecurityAbstract
Africa’s ungoverned margins are steadily becoming laboratories of rudimentary–proto governance for Salafi–Jihādi groups: from Nigeria’s Boko Haram, Somalia’s al-Shabaab to Mozambique’s Ansar al–Sunna. Although most Salafi–Jihādi groups in the continent have engaged in activities of radicalisation and sporadic terrorism, various nonstate actors are signifying a burgeoning desire for territoriality, jihādi provision and governance. Using Northern Mozambique as a space for epistemological and empirical analysis, this article interrogates the complexities of Salafi–Jihādi extremism in Southern Africa. The analysis situates the trajectories of Africa’s most recent Salafi–Jihādi group, Ansar al-Sunna at the fore. Through the conceptual lenses of rebel governance, the paper reveals how colonial legacies, societal exclusions and dispossession create desires for alterity: Salafi–Jihādi led rebelocracy. The paper argues that Salafi–jihādi groups are solidly becoming entities of enormous complexity where sectarianism feeds violent extremism, drives power grabs and rebelocracy. Salafi–Jihādi groups are strategically instrumentalising the “win–hearts and minds” (WHM) modus operandi to acquire ounces of territoriality and control across conflict–ridden localities. The perspective put forward in this article thus is aimed to enrich the current discourse on the nexus between Salafi–Jihādi groups, ungoverned spaces and rebelocracy in Southern Africa.
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