Attack

• In this third installment in a series, McLane continues recounting the stories of multi-generational families of missionaries in Persia and Turkey in a period spanning 1840 to 1920.
• Kathryn McLane, PhD is the granddaughter, great-granddaughter and great-great granddaughter of three generations of missionaries that served in Persia and Kurdistan.
• She has spent seven years researching the lives of her relatives and other missionaries in Persia, Turkey, and Asia Minor in order to write an accurate historical account of their lives.
• Xulon Press, a division of Salem Media Group, is the world's largest Christian self-publisher, with more than 20,000 titles published to date.

• Mozambican security forces will then take full responsibility for security.
• We asked military science and defence expert Thomas Mandrup, who has published a paper on the situation after a recent ground visit, to evaluate the mission.

Why did the military mission in Mozambique intervene?

• SADC member states had been putting pressure on the Mozambican government to allow a regional military intervention to prevent the insurgency from spreading in the region.
• Their fear was that Islamic State (Isis), to which the extremists are affiliated, would get a bridgehead from which they could expand their operations.
• Read more:
  Offshore gas finds offered major promise for Mozambique: what went wrong

  The SADC decided to deploy a combined force of 2,210 troops.

How successful was the mission? What were the challenges?

The SADC military mission had several main strategic objectives:
neutralising the extremists
assisting the Mozambique Defence Armed Forces in planning and undertaking operations
training and advising the Mozambique forces.

• An internal assessment report was presented at the July 2023 meeting of the then SADC leadership troika (Zambia, Namibia and South Africa).
• It concluded that the SADC mission had achieved its objective of reducing the insurgents’ capacity and assisting the Mozambican military.
• In addition, 570,000 internally displaced people had returned to their homes by August 2023, as the security situation had improved.
• Samim has found it difficult to fulfil its mandate of training the Mozambican force because they couldn’t identify their training needs.

What lessons can be learnt from the operation?

• And it must understand the area and situation it’s being deployed into.
• The Mozambican government and military have not always worked with the mission.

why was its response so slow and insufficient?
why did it oppose regional involvement for so long?
why has the SADC mission at times found it difficult to strike at the core of the insurgents?

• During my recent fieldwork several interviewees even suggested that a faction of Frelimo had at times supported the insurgents.
• Frelimo has strong ties to the region going back to the war of independence against Portugal, and later the civil war between Renamo and Frelimo.
• The local population considered it less effective than, for instance, the Rwandan force, which was also better equipped and trained.

What needs to happen

• The risk is that the extremists will once again take a stronger foothold there since the issues that led to the conflict in the first place remain unresolved.
• In addition, the Mozambican government and its security force have shown only limited signs of improved capacity.

Thomas Mandrup receives funding from the Carlsberg Foundation

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• By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend upon circumstances that will or may occur in the future.
• Please refer to the latest Annual Report on Form 20-F filed by Lloyds Banking Group plc with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), which is available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov, for a discussion of certain factors and risks.
• RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom.

• Statements that are not historical or current facts, including statements about the Lloyds Bank Group's or its directors' and/or management's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements.
• By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend upon circumstances that will or may occur in the future.
• Please refer to the latest Annual Report on Form 20-F filed by Lloyds Bank plc with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), which is available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov, for a discussion of certain factors and risks.
• RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom.