Southern African Leaders Step Up Response to Mozambique Insurgency 

JOHANNESBURG - Leaders from six Southern African nations met this week to figure out how to address a rise in violent extremist attacks in Mozambique’s volatile north, including a sophisticated attack last month that threatened the nation’s gas reserves.

Here is the puzzle the presidents of Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe are trying to solve: A shadowy insurgency has taken a stranglehold over northern Mozambique, increasing their violent attacks in recent months and endangering the nation’s large gas reserves.   On Thursday, after two days of meetings between regional military and security officials and heads of state, the Southern African Development Community’s top six leaders called for “an immediate technical deployment” to Mozambique ahead of another high-level meeting at the end of April. Legally, the body can intervene militarily in cases of intrastate conflict, like this one. But Mozambique has so far been unreceptive.