Mozambique:President urges tighter border control with Tanzania

President Filipe Nyusi has urged border guards in Cabo Delgado province to control the frontier with Tanzania more closely, in order to limit the entry and exit of terrorists.

Addressing members of the Defence and Security Forces (FDS) at the administrative post of Mieze, in the Cabo Delgado district of Metuge, Nyusi said that Mozambique’s neighbours controlled their own borders, not Mozambique’s.

A gunman killed three police officers and a private security guard on a rampage through a diplomatic quarter of Tanzania's main city Dar es Salaam last Wednesday, before being shot dead while holed up in a guardhouse at the French Embassy's gate.

Police said the attacker had first shot two police officers with a pistol at an intersection in the district, which houses a number of diplomatic missions. He took rifles from the fallen police officers, and headed on foot to the French embassy a few hundred metres away, firing randomly and occupying the guard house.

Inspector-General of Police Simon Sirro said in an interview aired on local television that police were trying to identify the attacker. While the motive was not yet known, Sirro suggested the attack could be related to Tanzania's role in neighbouring Mozambique, where it sent troops this month to help fight Islamist insurgents as part of a regional security force.

"There are problems, our soldiers are there," Sirro said of Mozambique.

Police official Sabas told reporters it was too early to say whether the gunman was a Tanzanian national, or whether he had links to terrorism.