Algeria will provide “immediate support” to the local force – President Nyusi

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Algeria will provide “immediate support” to the local force – President Nyusi

3:01 CAT | 04 Mar 2024

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo:Presidente Filipe Nyusi / Facebook]

President Filipe Nyusi has announced that Algeria will provide immediate support to the ‘local force’ which, alongside the army, is fighting terrorist groups in the province of Cabo Delgado.

“They promised immediate support for the local force fighting terrorism,” Filipe Nyusi declared during a press conference summarising his working visit to Algeria.

The so-called local force is made up mainly of former guerrillas from the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), which led the war against the Portuguese colonial regime between 1964 and 1974, and who have voluntarily taken up arms again to fight the rebel groups carrying out attacks in the province of Cabo Delgado.

According to Filipe Nyusi, Algeria will support the local force with personal equipment, help that is expected to arrive “within some time”.

“They (the Algerians) were touched when they heard that some colleagues (veterans) were fighting terrorism underequipped,” the Mozambican head of state said.

The local force has been an important ally in operations to counter the armed insurgency in northern Mozambique, having the advantage of being made up of former local guerrillas who know the geography of the region where the conflict is taking place.

The group is under the command of the Armed Defence and Security Forces of Mozambique and is supported by the Ministry of Defence, with voluntary membership by former combatants of the liberation struggle and other people who still feel capable of returning to the fight.

READ: Mozambique: Algeria pledges support for fight against terrorism – AIM

The armed insurgency in northern Mozambique, and this voluntary movement of demobilized guerrillas, occurs in the province where the colonial liberation struggle began on September 25, 1964, with an attack on a position of Portuguese colonial regime forces in Administrative Post of Chai, in Macomia.

In addition to the local force, Algeria promised to train the Defence and Security Forces of Mozambique, while simultaneously maintaining cooperation between the two countries in terms of information in the context of combating terrorism, Nyusi added.

Mutual cooperation between the two countries is based on the General Cooperation Agreement signed by the Mozambican and Algerian governments in Algiers on December 11, 1985, during the visit of the first President of Mozambique, Samora Machel.
Cabo Delgado province has been facing an armed insurgency for six years, with some attacks claimed by the extremist Islamic State group.

The insurgency has led to a military response since July, 2021, with the support of Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating districts near natural gas projects, but new waves of attacks have arisen in the south of the region.

The conflict has already displaced one million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and caused around 4,000 deaths, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).

After several months of relative normality in the districts affected by armed violence in Cabo Delgado, the province has, for a few weeks now, been registering new movements and attacks by rebel groups, whose circulation is limited to points on the few paved roads in the districts affected.

Source: Lusa