'Supporters of the Tradition') or Ahlu Sunna Wal Jammah, is an Islamist militant group active in Cabo Delgado Province, Mozambique.

Since October 2017, it has waged an insurgency in the region, seeking to undermine the secular FRELIMO government and establish an Islamic state.

[5] Its members typically reject the secularism of the existing Mozambican state (and of its ruling party, FRELIMO), and support governance under sharia.

[3] Some claim that the Makonde, the largely Christian group which dominates the interior of Cabo Delgado, has received preferential treatment from the FRELIMO government.

[3] There is therefore debate about the extent to which religious extremism alone drives the insurgency: some accounts emphasise an ethnic dimension and its connection to perceived social, political, and economic marginalisation.

International Crisis Group reports that it incorporates a sizeable contingent of foreign fighters, many of them from neighbouring Tanzania, and many of them former acolytes of Aboud Rogo, a Kenyan cleric who was linked both to al-Qaeda and to Somalia's al-Shabaab before his assassination in 2012.

[5][9] According to International Crisis Group, al-Shabaab's membership experienced a boost in 2016 when it was joined by a contingent of expelled ruby miners.

[5] The conference identified an al-Shabaab presence in at least four districts of Cabo Delgado: Mocímboa da Praia, Montepuez, Palma, and Nangade; and possibly also Macomia and Quissanga.

[9] According to American estimates, al-Shabaab attacks killed more than 1,300 civilians and displaced nearly 670,000 people in northern Mozambique between October 2017 and March 2021.

[19] International Crisis Group said that the decrease in numbers was "mainly because many foreign jihadists have fled the country while Mozambican insurgents have melted into the civilian population rather than surrender or be killed".

[20] During the rest of 2019, the Islamic State's media claimed responsibility for thirteen additional attacks in Mozambique under the ISCAP banner.

[5][9] According to the Combating Terrorism Center, it and other African affiliates of the Islamic State have "historically evolved under their own steam and acted with a significant degree of autonomy".

[13] Some reports have also suggested that religious, commercial, and military links exist – particularly via assistance with training – between al-Shabaab and other "radical Islamist" groups in Somalia, Tanzania, Kenya and the broader Great Lakes Region.

[3] Observers charge al-Shabaab militants with numerous war crimes,[21] including the mass murder of civilians on various occasions.