JOHANNESBURG—It was five days before Christmas, but the 61-armed men creeping gently through the forested hills near the village of Chai in northern Mozambique were not in a holiday mood. Their mission was to “find and engage” jihadist militants linked to Islamic State of Central Africa, whose goal was to make Christian rites a forgotten tradition. The 11 South African special forces soldiers and 50 Mozambican troops didn’t know it, but something was about to go terribly wrong. “We don’t know how it happened, but ISIS knew our guys were coming for them. They led them into an ambush,” a source in the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) told The Epoch Times. As shots rang out most of the Mozambicans fled, according to the South African contingent, but not before eight perished as the insurgents sprayed the area with automatic gunfire. Corporal Tebogo Radebe, 31, also fell during the …