The next round of Mozambican soldiers identified for quick reaction training as part of the offensive against ASWJ (Al Sunnah Wa Jama’ah) is in the hands of experienced and qualified instructors honing various military skills ahead of deployment.
Instructors attached to EUTM Mozambique (European Union Training Mission – Mozambique) are busy with the fifth cycle of quick reaction force (QRF) training for selected FADM (Forças Armadas de Defesa de Moçambique) soldiers.
Trainees, an EUTM Moz statement has it, learnt to “build new effective, credible and structured” QRFs. The EUTM Moz training group, working with mission headquarters staff, work to “a complex and demanding programme”. It is “characterised” by exercises of increasing difficultly, theoretical and practical lessons aimed at providing the correct tools for local forces to operate optimally.
Programme content includes planning, topography and field navigation, tactical combat casualty care, weapons training, communication procedures, counter-terrorism and more, “always in close contact with trainees and local trainers”. Training takes place at Katembe and Mavalane, near Maputo, and Dongo in Chimoio.
“The commitment and dedication of training group personnel, combined with trainee motivation as well as specific non-lethal equipment supplies provided by the EU Assistance Measure under the European Peace Facility, is increasingly enabling EUTM trained troops to be fully operational and self-sufficient on deployment,” EUTM said.
On completion of the training programme the QRF soldiers will be able to conduct operations in situations requiring “a high level of reactive and decisive response to protect the civilian population”.
