Emergency loans granted to Maputo by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have come at a steep price: the mandated slashing of Mozambique's civil service budgets have left its military struggling to handle a growing Daesh*-linked insurgency, prompting the government and international companies to hire private mercenaries.
In the aftermath of a daring assault on the key northern port of Palma by Ahlu Sunna wa Jama (ASWJ), a group pledging itself to Daesh, the government of Mozambique has begun reconsidering its position on refusing help from foreign governments. Leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met last week in the Mozambican capital of Maputo at the country's extreme southern tip and promised an “immediate technical deployment” to the country.
He added that no war can be won “if it isn't clear from the beginning what can be done by the country itself and what can be done by allies.”
Nyusi has spoken little since on what exactly that means. However, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa told the Zimbabwe Mail after the meeting he thought SADC's Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) should be “resuscitated and capacitated immediately so that it can intervene.” The force, originally created in 2013 as the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO), is composed entirely of troops from South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania.
US, Portuguese Special Forces Training
Maputo has also slowly bowed to insistence by…