Word: moroccans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Ever since Moroccan troops arrived last month and the U.S., France and Belgium offered a little help, the fortunes of Zaire's strange little war have turned sharply in favor of the central government. As the threat declined, President Mobutu Sese Seko flew to the supposedly embattled Shaba region?the former Katanga province?to inspect some recaptured villages. TIME Nairobi Bureau Chief Lee Griggs, who accompanied Mobutu on the trip, sent this report...
...equipped but poorly motivated soldiers were in disgraceful retreat, refusing to fight and often simply running away from a ragtag band of Angola-based Katangese rebels. Now the rebels were on the run. The secret ingredient in the turn-around was mostly psychological: the presence of 1,500 elite Moroccan troops who had been airlifted in at Mobutu's desperate request. The Moroccans shamed Zaïre's 4,000 troops in the fighting area into showing a little backbone. This persuaded the 2,000 or so rebels and, presumably, their Angolan and Cuban supporters as well that the cost...
...rebel retreat, from within 20 miles of the copper-mining center of Kolwezi, had started even before the government "offensive." As they probed slowly westward, with Moroccans providing back-up support and removing antipersonnel mines from the dirt tracks en route, Zaïrian forces encountered practically no resistance. There was not a single major firefight and hardly a contact of any kind. "This isn't a war," one bored Moroccan officer confided. "It is a matter of making armed reconnaissance and then retaking ground without a fight. To call it a war is a joke...
Nibbling Away. Taking a few prisoners does not quite mean winning a war. Nonetheless, the Zaïrian strongman had good reason to feel buoyant last week. Bolstered by 1,500 crack Moroccan troops, le Guide's forces appeared at last to have won a round in a murky conflict that some Africans have dubbed "the Termite War." Neither side seemed able to do any more than nibble away at the other. But last week government troops not only halted the advance of the ragtag invasion army toward Kolwezi, the center of Zaïre's copper-mining...
During the week at least 1,000 Moroccan soldiers joined the 4,000 Zairian troops at Kolwezi, center of Shaba's copper-mining district. Implying that the tide of battle was turning, Kinshasa claimed that 30-40 rebel soldiers had been killed by week's end. But nobody could be quite sure since the government had taken the precaution of ordering all foreign journalists out of the fighting area. Stated reason: some of the previous news reports had contained "military secrets" and thus were "tantamount to espionage...