Prolonged shelling seems prelude to Amin’s downfall

Press, 11 April 1979, Page 8

Prolonged shelling seems prelude to Amin’s downfall

NZPA-Reuter Nairobi Tanzanian forces and Ugandan rebels bombarded Kampala yesterday in what appeared to be a prelude to a final assault on the capital, residents have reported to Nairobi.

They said by telephone that artillery and mortar fire began at dawn and rocked t’ city for 90 minutes. It was the heaviest artillery and mortar attack against President Idi Amin’s capital since the invaders took up positions around Kampala after capturing Entebbe Airport a week ago. The residents said they did not know if the Tanzanian and anti-Amin forces had advanced under cover of the bombardment. President Amin’s elite reserve troops were entrenched in banana groves and coffee plantations just south of Kampala after rallying against the invading army. Field-Marshal Amin had thrown crack units of the Ugandan Army into the battle on the shores of Lake Victoria, the residents said. There had been only desultory firing in the battle zone on Monday after heavy artillery duels at the weekend. The invaders met stiffening resistance as they advanced on Kampala from the airport. Exile sources said up to

e 3000 troops were defending ? Kampala, including Nubians iof the Bombo Regiment, strongly loyal to the Presi- . dent and brought from his ; own north-east region. ; Field-Marshal Amin had 3 also rallied the battered j Mariire Mechanised Regi- . ment, whose tanks swept him to power in the 1971 , coup. ' If President Amin had ’ committed the crack troops, ’ he apparently saw the battle for Kampala as decisive and did not envisage making a ■ stand elsewhere, diplomats ■ said. ! The President’s army is : badly in need of fuel, and ■ Western economists estimate '• that the five-month-old war is costing Tanzania SIM a I day. ! Uganda radio, still in i President Amin’s hands, ! quoted the District Commissioner of Kampala as saying ■ there w r as no cause for pub- : lie alarm in the city. ' The commissioner, Lieu- ■ tenant Waheeb, said thou- - sands of people had an- ■ swered an appeal he made ; for residents to return to Kampala, from which many t fled two weeks ago.

g, Swedish officials said s yesterday that the fate of J four European journalists - missing in Uganda remained s unknown. Four whites were reported 1 to have been killed near i Lake Victoria but the bodies, • had not been seen by West-' t ern diplomats, and there was I a chance that the journalists were still alive, officials! 1 said. , There was still hope bes cause two separate groups 1 of white men w'ere reported ito have been seized by s Ugandan forces in the same area, and the four now re- > ported to have been shot 1 might not have been the : journalists, the Swedish offi- • cials said. i There was no indication of the identities of the other i four men. , Sources in Kampala, - speaking to Western corres- ; pondents in Kenya by tele- - phone, said the Ugandan Foreign Ministry had re- - ported the killing of four - white men to the West Ger- - man Embassy, describing > them as armed mercenaries. 5 Two of the missing jourr nalists are West Germans, and two are Swedes.