Rwanda’s threat to stop protecting a U.S. gas project from the Islamic State in Mozambique is putting in jeopardy billions of dollars in contracts as Rwanda balances responding to U.S. sanctions and bringing about regional peace.
Rwanda, known as the “Prussia of Africa” for its small but highly capable military, plays a large role in regional peace operations, with its 6,200-man deployment to Mozambique crucial to containing the Islamic State-Mozambique insurgency. Its alleged involvement with a paramilitary rebel group, M23, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has caused the Western world to sour on its relationship with the country, bringing its peacekeeping deployments elsewhere under threat. Rwanda denies involvement in M23’s actions in eastern Congo.
The mission in Mozambique, arguably Rwanda’s most successful, has come under increasing financial strain over the M23 rebellion. Last month, the European Union ruled out further financial aid for Rwandan forces in Mozambique. The bloc released an initial aid package of roughly $23 million for the Rwandan army; it was renewed a second time, and then it was up for a third renewal when Europe canceled it.
An even bigger blow came last month, when the United States sanctioned Rwanda’s military over its alleged actions in the DRC, a move the Congo had been calling for for months. Though one of the most prosperous countries in Africa, Rwanda still benefits significantly from U.S. aid and investment.
Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe vented his frustrations about the U.S.’s slight in posts on X last month, saying Rwanda was ready to leave Mozambique altogether “if our work and achievements are not appreciated.”
“It is not that ‘Rwanda could withdraw,’” he wrote. “It is that ‘Rwanda WILL withdraw’ its troops from Mozambique, if sustainable funding is not secured for its counter-terrorism operations in Cabo Delgado,” the northernmost Mozambican province.
Richard Moncrieff, a projects director for the International Crisis Group focusing on Central Africa, told the Washington Examiner that Rwanda’s peacekeeping deployments rank “very high” on Kigali’s priorities list, making such a move even more drastic.
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A future LNG powerhouse
Western oil companies have been eyeing Mozambique as a target for investment, but political violence and instability threaten their future plans.
Mozambique was one of the most war-ravaged countries of the 20th century, in a state of near-constant conflict from 1964 to 1992. The country has struggled to progress since, and it remains one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world.
The Mozambican government hopes that this could change with the blessings of its natural resources — the country boasts one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world. According to the Oil & Gas Journal, Mozambique holds 100 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves, the third largest in Africa after Nigeria and Algeria.
The reserves have moved the Mozambican government to strike lucrative contracts with three Western companies: one French-owned, one Italian-owned, and one with the U.S.’s Exxon Mobil. Across the three projects, Mozambique is set to earn around $100 billion over 30 years, a game-changing boost for its struggling economy.
The Exxon project is projected to be the most lucrative, but a final decision hasn’t been made on whether to proceed due to the instability in the area.
An inflection point in a long-running insurgency
Rwanda intervened in Mozambique in 2021, when the then-four-year-old Islamic insurgency reached its peak and attacks on Western gas infrastructure increased. The Islamic militant group had pledged allegiance to ISIS, turning the southeast African country into another front in the global war on terrorism. Rwanda’s intervention came as a much-needed relief to the U.S., worn out from repeated anti-terrorism deployments in the Middle East and Africa.
The insurgency is of particular interest to the U.S. as Mozambique has moved to the top of the U.S.’s priority list in Africa after years of neglect, according to the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan think tank. The U.S. government and aligned U.S. groups such as the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, and the Millennium Challenge Corp. have provided billions of dollars in aid to Mozambique over the past few years.
The Mozambican army had been largely dismantled by war, leaving it wholly unprepared to fight an insurgency of the scope of that in Cabo Delgado, said Borges Nhamirre, a Mozambican researcher at the Institute for Security Studies. Rebuilding an army “is not something that you are going to complete in two to three years,” he told the Washington Examiner, especially in a poverty-stricken country.
Rwanda, boasting one of the most capable militaries in sub-Saharan Africa, was the first country to intervene, beginning with a deployment of 2,000 troops that has since grown to 6,300, according to Rwandan government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo. The disciplined force was noted for both its combat effectiveness and adoption of an effective counterinsurgency strategy.
The Rwandan military and police personnel “won the support of civilians in the province by consulting them about their needs when they operate in an area,” said Charles Ray, former U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe and chairman of the Africa program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute
“They have also been very careful to minimize or avoid civilian casualties. They speak Swahili, the local lingua franca, and work with locals on community projects. In other words, they set out to win the hearts and minds of the local population,” Ray told the Washington Examiner.
He contrasted Rwanda’s approach to that of the Mozambican government, which still has a hostile relationship with the northern province. A lack of investment in the north and poor material conditions have eroded trust in institutions such as the army, while the soldiers themselves have struggled to adapt to the Islamic State’s sophisticated tactics in Mozambique.
A multinational African force was deployed soon after the Rwandan force, but it was less effective than the Rwandans. The force largely withdrew in 2024 due to a lack of funding.
While most Islamic State land in Mozambique was retaken and the insurgency died down, the trend began to reverse last year. According to the International Organization for Migration, over 100,000 people were displaced in November alone, bringing the total to 350,000.
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data recorded 549 deaths in 302 Islamic State attacks in 2025, a 56% increase from 2024. Some Mozambicans began protesting, saying Rwandan troops were neglecting their duties and refusing to respond to attacks.
Nhamirre argued this characterization was largely unfair, as it misunderstood a shift in priorities. While the demand for more resources in the DRC could be a reason, he said the primary cause for this perception was that Rwandan forces had to shift their focus to protecting the LNG projects and their surroundings. The force also faced political turmoil after a transitional government took power in 2024, causing it to “retreat a little bit and sit and watch what is happening.”
Ray also said the “situation is not as clear cut as it might seem” and that any drawdown in forces was likely due to resource demands in the DRC rather than a malicious effort on the part of Kigali.
The Washington Examiner contacted the Rwandan government for comment.
Will Rwanda withdraw?
As for whether Rwanda’s threat to withdraw will be effective, Moncrieff was doubtful. The possible economic benefits from the DRC’s critical minerals are much more valuable than the LNG projects, so Washington may be trying to get closer to the Congo.
At the heart of the matter, he argued, was Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s calculation of the trade-offs between Western economic aid and the economic benefits derived from the DRC.
“I think that the Rwandans have made a calculation that Western aid is declining anyway, which is true, and that they have an opportunity, a once-in-a-generation opportunity, to effectively take over North Kivu and half of South Kivu, and that they’re just going to do it,” Moncrieff said, referring to provinces in the DRC.
“And the more they get embedded in there, the more it becomes a personal issue for Kagami, the less likely they are to bend when confronted with economic sanctions or withdrawal of aid,” he added.
Despite this, Moncrieff believes U.S. pressure has impacted the war in the eastern DRC. This pressure has prevented the pro-Rwandan DRC rebels from expanding further, he believes. The possibility of more sanctions is also risky. He identified the possibility of cutting off World Bank aid as potentially “catastrophic” for Rwanda.
“I also feel that the invasion of the DRC may well show me that the Rwandan leadership understands that success has limits, and that Rwanda is a small, landlocked country, and that it’s reached a natural conclusion of its development model, and the next stage in its development model is to annex part of the Congo,” Moncrieff said.
“And I actually think that that is a rational development strategy, but it shows the limits of Rwanda developing on its own, pulling itself up by its own bootstraps,” he added.
Whether Rwanda will actually withdraw its troops, leaving Western gas projects largely at the mercy of the Islamic State, or is simply bluffing, is up for debate. Moncrieff wasn’t convinced it would.
He argued that the deployment itself is immensely beneficial for Rwanda, serving as both a major prestige and economic boost for Kigali.
The operations “get Rwanda money either directly through being paid for deployments, whether multilateral, bilateral, or by helping open up investment opportunities, including by investment vehicles held by the army or the Ministry of Defense, but also by other private Rwandan investments,” Moncrieff said.
Nhamirre concurred, pointing to economic activities by a Rwandan security company and a Rwandan construction company that have made a tremendous amount of money from the improved security situation in Mozambique.
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Moncrieff also argued that the stripping of the latest E.U. funding package wasn’t an important development.
“They weren’t in it for the E.U. money,” he said. “The E.U. money was mainly symbolic. I mean, it’s not a negligible amount of money, but it was largely symbolic.”