Dr. Michael Shurkin is Director of Global Programs at 14 North Strategies. Dr. Shurkin has been working on African security for roughly 16 years, including more than a decade at the RAND Corporation and several years as a political analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. Shurkin holds a Ph.D. in history from Yale University and also studied at Stanford and the Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France. He tweets at @MichaelShurkin.
A recent attack on the northern Mozambican town of Palma by Ahl al-Sunnah wa al Jamma’ah, a group affiliated with the Islamic State, has raised questions about its origins and rapid success in a part of the world few would associate with Islamist violence.
