Word: rian
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...hard-fighting paratroopers of France's Foreign Legion (see box), an estimated 2,000 Katangese rebels faded back into the bush, retreating toward their home bases in eastern Angola. The paratroopers took up new positions at Lubumbashi, 160 miles away, turning over their guard duty to Zaïrian troops loyal to President Mobutu Sese Seko...
...self-styled Katangese "Tigers" had been thoroughly organized. A year earlier, an estimated 2,000 rebels had launched Shaba I, an incursion into the region that was halted short of Kolwezi after 49 days of fighting between the F.N.L.C. forces and the French-supported Moroccan and Zaïrian troops. The rebels promised to return to Shaba and overthrow Mobutu's regime. They carefully planned this infiltration. After the liberation of Kolwezi, French paratroopers found three railroad cars filled with weapons, ranging from Soviet AK-47 automatic rifles to Israeli-made UZI submachine guns. Along with the guns...
...ammunition were .stores of food, including U.S. military rations, cans of fruit salad, and frankfurters. Much of the material had been either stolen or purchased illicitly from the Zaïrian army, whose soldiers are so poorly paid that corruption is endemic...
...rian forces added to the death toll. In Kolwezi, suspected rebel sympathizers were taken in a long line to a quarry on the city's outskirts for interrogation; from time to time the sharp rattle of gunfire filled the air. Toward week's end, President Mobutu ordered his troops to clear civilians from a 65-mile stretch of Shaba province along the Angolan border. The area, he warned, would be a fire-free zone, in which Zaïrian troops would have permission to shoot at anything that moved...
...Mobutu under terms of the International Security Assistance Act of 1977, which allows the President to provide certain aid to a foreign country-without congressional approval-if it is deemed "in the national security interests of the United States." Carter authorized $2.5 million worth of training for Zaïrian military officers and $17.5 million in credits for the purchase of "nonlethal" equipment, including medical supplies and spare parts. With that as a prologue, the Administration announced that military transports would fly support missions for the French and the Belgians...