The bloody takeover late last month of Palma, a northern town at the centre of Mozambique’s vast oil and natural gas prospects, has again prompted international — and particularly regional — pressure to stem the violence. Attacks by an armed group known locally as al-Shabab, whose origins, analysts say, are steeped in local political, religious and economic discontent, have steadily increased in the Cabo Delgado province since October 2017. The sophistication of the attacks has increased, too. The ISIS-linked fighters have ransacked towns and gained control of key roadways. They have abducted young women and children and beheaded civilians. They have destroyed infrastructure and even expanded their sphere of operation north into neighbouring Tanzania. And since August 20 last year, they have been in control of the key Mozambican port town of Mocimboa da Praia. The worsening fighting has displaced some 700 000 people and killed more than 2 500. Early last month, rights watchdog Amnesty International accused both the fighters and Mozambique’s security forces, as well as a South African private military firm hired by the government, of war crimes against civilians, including extrajudicial executions and acts of torture. Eric Morier-Genoud, a professor at Queen’s University Belfast who focuses on Mozambican history and politics, said the attack on Palma — located next to Africa’s largest liquified natural gas construction site, where French energy giant Total has embarked on a US$20 billionn project — has put “major pressure” on the Mozambican government to accept help from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and Western powers. “But the government of Mozambique is very sensitive in relation to its sovereignty,” Morier-Genoud said. “It does not want foreign boots in Mozambique, and it wants to keep in control and in command of any other interventions, whether military or humanitarian.” On Thursday, Sadc, which is currently chaired by Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, called for an “immediate technical deployment” to Mozambique following a special summit in the capital, Maputo. Details of that deployment were not immediately released. However, the move is seen as indicating a slight shift in what has historically been, for the most part, a “security stalemate” between Mozambique and regional and Western governments. “Where you have the host country [Mozambique] saying we want X, Y and Z, but we want it on our terms,” Dino Mahtani, the Africa deputy programme director at International Crisis Group, explained. “[And other governments] saying, ‘Well, you’re not going to get that unless we have boots on the ground, or rather, you’re not going to get this unless we can mentor you and we can be closer and we can understand what it is that you want us to do with our equipment’.” Observers have long expressed concern that Mozambique’s security forces are ill-equipped to respond to the devolving situation, the genesis and perpetuation of which remains unclear. It is believed to be related, in part, to a local popula