Suspected “jihadists” announce “holy war” against Kabila, EAC Heads of State

A video of alleged Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) fighters, warning presidents Joseph Kabila, Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni surfaced this Monday on the internet, Reports POLITICO.CD, a DRC based News website which proclaims that It stands as the only source of reliable information regarding DRC.

The two-minute, twenty-second video shows about ten people, including women and children, some of them wearing military uniforms and weapons. Speaking in Swahili, French and Kinyarwanda, they call for a “holy war” in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, warning presidents Kabila, Museveni or Kagame.

“This message is sent to Joseph Kabila [DRC], Magufuli Pombe [Tanzania], Paul Kagame [Rwanda], Yoweri Museveni [Uganda] (…) we are ready [to go to war] at any time,” said a man holding a gun in his hand.

“We are not here to occupy the beaches, we are not here to kill the animals, we are here to raise the Qur’an of Allah and the Sunate his Prophet Mohamed”, he adds, before directly threatening the president Kabila: “wait for us, we are on the way”, under the laughter of children and women around him.

This is the second video that mentions an Islamist movement in eastern DRC where the authorities have always claimed to face a terrorist movement including Beni. Since 2014, the city has faced attacks against civilians, the army and even against Monusco, killing several thousand people.

Indeed, another two-minute video was broadcast on several secure sites and through jihadist messaging applications in October 2017. There was a man holding a machine gun, speaking in Arabic. Surrounded by those who appeared to be militiamen, they claimed the group Madinat Tawhid wa-l-Muwahidin (MTM, the city of monotheism and monotheists), calling “Muslims around the world to come to Congo to perform a” hijrah “[Hegira].”

At the time, in an intervention on POLITICO.CD, Lambert Mende, spokesman of the Congolese government and Minister of Communication and Media, insisted that his country faces a group that applies what he calls “International Jihadism”, and calls on the international community to intervene.

This intervention by Lambert Mende sparked a public outcry on social networks and among Congolese opponents who, for them, the government “hides its weaknesses” behind an “imaginary” terrorist group. Martin Fayulu, President of an opposition political party, talks about “artificial crisis”, while Moses Katumbi, another opponent of the government of President Joseph Kabila, talks about the government’s irresponsibility “to” secure “civilian populations” .