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Screen grab: Miramar
The situation in the northern province of Cabo Delgado is stable, but sporadic terrorist attacks are still likely to occur, warned Mozambican Defence Minister Cristóvão Chume, after a meeting in Maputo on Friday with his Tanzanian counterpart, Stergomena Tax.
Cited by the independent television station STV. Chume said that the jihadists were changing their tactics after losing their main fixed bases to offensives by the Mozambican Defence and Security forces and their SADC and Rwandan allies. They were operating in smaller groups infiltrating districts in the south of the province.
“The destabilization picture we saw six weeks ago is not the same as today”, said the Minister. “Today there is greater stability. But what we have always said is that you can’t fix deadlines for the fight against terrorism, because the dynamic changes”.
What was happening In Ancuabe and Meluco districts, in the south of the province, and what Chume called “some episodes” in Chiure, and the spillover into Memba district, in the neighbouring province of Nampula, was the result of the major operations launched against the jihadists further north, notably the capture, in Macomia district, of the Katupa base, “which was the terrorists’ centre of gravity”.
“Since we have taken that base, we can expect to see, in the coming days, sporadic attacks in some areas”, added the Minister.
He said he had discussed with his Tanzanian counterpart “how we can strengthen the current framework for the fight against terrorism. We have asked for the greatest possible commitment so that neither Mozambique nor Tanzania serve as a space to shelter terrorist actions, which might then spread throughout the region”.
Tanzania had put troops into Mozambique as part of the SADC military mission in Mozambique (SAMIM). “That is its major contribution”, said Chume. “Its second contribution is that it has been undertaking operations in its own territory to deny the terrorists any possibility of entering our country”.
Chume denied that Tanzania had ever refused to cooperate with Mozambique in the fight against terrorism. “I don’t recall members of our government saying, at any time, that the friendly Republic of Tanzania is not cooperating”, he said.
He pointed out that Tanzania had been a rear base for the Mozambican liberation movement during the war for independence from Portuguese colonial rule, and that in the war of destabilization waged against Mozambique by the South African apartheid regime, Tanzanian soldiers had died alongside Mozambicans in defending the country.
When reporters asked her about the Tanzanians known to be in the leadership of the terrorist movement. Stergomena Tax replied “Terrorists don’t respect borders. They have no nationality. They are everywhere. They move from one place to another. As you say, some of the leaders are from Tanzania. But they are from everywhere”.
“What we can say is that Tanzania is committed to fighting against terrorism”, said Tax. “That is why we are among the troops that SADC has here in Mozambique. So, let’s put aside the idea that the terrorists come from Tanzania, or from anywhere else. The terrorists have no nationality”.
Tax is a former executive secretary of SADC, which was the position she held when SADC agreed to set up SAMIM to fight against terrorism.
Watch the Miramar report.
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