Ten persons including children have been beheaded in a village in northern Mozambique in a weekend attack that has been blamed on suspected Islamists.

Local media sources said the pre-dawn attack on Sunday occurred in Monjane, a village located close to the border with Tanzania and not far from Palma, a small town gearing up to be the country’s new natural gas hub in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

Cabo Delgado has witnessed a number of attacks by suspected radical Islamists since October, even as a Mozambique state broadcaster also reported ‘10 persons decapitated’ in the Palma are.

Confirming the incident, Palma’s Administrator, David Machimbuko told reporters that they were informed about the tragedy, which he said bore the trademarks of Islamist terrorists.

According to a local resident who spoke without giving his name for fear of reprisals, one of the victims of the latest attack was the leader of Monjane village.

“The attackers on Monjane approached the village from a nearby forest. Police were called but arrived very late and the attackers were already gone. Nothing was stolen. They are becoming more much radical now as they are facing attacks from government,” he said.

“They targeted the chief as he had been providing information to the police about the location of al-Shabaab in the forests,” he added, referring to an armed group believed to be responsible for a deadly October attack on a police station and military post in the town of Mocimboa da Praia.

Two officers died and 14 attackers were killed in the October attack. which is believed to be the first attack on the country by the jihadist group which has no known link to the Somali jihadist group of the same name.

A study published last week by a Mozambican academic. Joao Pereira said up to 40 members of the radical group ‘have been trained by movements’ that operate in the Great Lakes region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Kenya.

The increase in attacks in the north of the country presents a huge problem for Mozambique, which is scheduled to hold its general elections next year and has its eyes set on recently-discovered gas reserves off the shores of Palma.

The country’s north has largely been excluded from the economic growth of the last 20 years, and the region sees itself as a neglected outpost from Mozambique, which just this month, passed an anti-terrorism law that punishes terrorism activity with more than 40 years in jail.