Rapid reaction in name only

Good afternoon. The European Union has helped Mozambique create 11 rapid-reaction units for the war in Cabo Delgado. It has trained soldiers, supplied equipment and is now helping regenerate those units between deployments. Yet the insurgents remain able to operate across an expanding area while supposedly specialised forces are frequently used in ways that defeat the purpose of their training.

Brigadier-General Sérgio Estrela, commander of the European Union Military Assistance Mission in Mozambique, has offered an unusually direct explanation. The FADM remain constrained by excessive centralisation of command, weaknesses in intelligence and shortages of equipment and money. These are not deficiencies that another training course can resolve.

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The figures underline the problem. Estrela said insurgents had conducted about 154 attacks over the previous five months, spread across approximately 120 locations in 16 districts of Cabo Delgado and Niassa. They increasingly disperse into small groups and avoid direct confrontation with the FADM. Abductions, used to obtain ransom and recruits, rose from 29% of attacks in the first half of the year to 56% in the most recent quarter.

That kind of enemy requires exactly what the European programme was intended to provide: mobile units able to receive intelligence, deploy quickly, strike and withdraw. Rapid-reaction forces should spend limited periods in operations before returning for rest, resupply and renewed training. Instead, some have reportedly remained in static positions for months, performing the work of ordinary garrison forces.