POLICY PAPER| FES Mozambique A Double-Edged Sword: Peace Support Operations and Conflict Management in Northern Mozambique Cheryl Hendricks, Amanda Lucey and Loide da Gloria Sambo Macaringue November 2023 Introduction Mozambique has been beleaguered by violent extrem­ism since attacks began in 2017. It has become one of the top 15 countries in the world affected by terrorism, ranked 13 th in 2022. i The causes of this conflict are complex and multi-varied, and their confluence gave rise to a‘perfect storm’ that has continued to fuel violent extremism in the north of the country. Violent extrem­ism in Mozambique denotes a growing challenge of this form of violence in the Southern Africa region, as it is also present in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC). Mozambique first received assistance from private militaries such as Wagner(Russian) and Dyck(South African), who had departed by 2021 after incurring losses. Mozambique then requested support from Rwanda to assist it with containing the insurgency. Despite initial reservations by the Mozambican govern­ment around issues of sovereignty, it then also invited the Southern African Development Community(SADC) to deploy, as advised by a SADC technical mission that took place in April 2021. The Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique(SAMIM) and the Rwanda Defence Force(RDF) deployed to Cabo Delgado in July 2021. The European Union also au­thorised a European Union Training Mission(EUTM) in Mozambique to assist with capacity building of the security sector in 2021. This situational brief examines the peace support op­erations(PSOs) and conflict management strategies of Rwanda’s forces, SAMIM and the EUTM in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. It is based on primary and secondary data, including interviews that were held with SAMIM, RDF, civil society members and academics in Maputo and Pemba between 23 and 31 October 2022. 1 The brief outlines some of the respective challenges and successes of these PSOs. It contends that the conflict management strategies employed represent a double­edged sword for the country. The more progress that is made through military interventions in stabilising the