Angolan army threatens key UNITA stronghold

The UNITA rebel movement, under pressure from an Angolan army offensive, is attempting to withdraw its forces from its key central highlands military and air supply base in Andulo, Western diplomats and security analysts told IRIN this week. They said government forces were now close to Andulo, which lies some 480 km southeast of the Angolan capital, Luanda. The government’s offensive, prosecuted with caution and under a blanket of official silence since mid-September, has already succeeded in eliminating UNITA’s politically-symbolic Bailundo base 120 km southwest of Andulo, security analysts told IRIN. As they advance on Andulo, UNITA could be forced to abandon its conventional military equipment and revert to its traditional guerrilla warfare tactics. “UNITA are moving out of Andulo in large numbers but they can’t get their tanks and vehicles out because there are only a few roads in the area,” one Western envoy said. Government forces are now pressing south from Mussende and from an area north of Cunhinga to capture Andulo and its strategic air field. The Angolan Armed Forces (FAA), have been reorganised and with better planning, have won back some confidence after two earlier disastrous attempts to oust UNITA from the central highlands in December last year and again in March, security sources said. New ground-attack aircraft, and reports of the involvement of foreign pilots, has also given the government a military edge. “If they take Andulo they will try and box UNITA up in the Kwanza river valley” which lies north of Andulo, an analyst said. Some UNITA forces are expected to move east into Moxico Province while others could head north towards the Luando game reserve, an area where UNITA is long-suspected to have built an airstrip. But, a diplomatic source warned, “its definitely not over yet.” He said there has still not been a major UNITA counter-attack, and expected the rebels would drop conventional tactics and revert to mobile guerrilla insurgency. According to a UNITA report posted on the Internet on 24 September, the rebels said they could call on 40,000 guerrilla fighters. The document said UNITA intended to “reorganise” countrywide and launch attacks in the diamond-rich northeastern Cuango river valley, Bengo Province outside Luanda, the outskirts of the northern city of Malanje, and the coastal areas between Lobito and Luanda. It added that artillery would be redeployed “within range of some of the key strategic centres.”