'Arms flow increased

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34099, 11 March 1976, Page 17

'Arms flow increased

I by i

DREW MIDDLETON,

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du-oupA VZ.P.U \l£\\ WRK. March 10. (.Contrary to sonic reports. Soviet arms shipments to Mozambique liaxu increased recently, according to I nited Slates and British analysts, who hclicxt that the weapons will go tin. black guerrilla forces lighting the whiteminority Rhodesian < ><»v eminent. Two Russian ITeighlets are said to haxe unloaded arms and other military equipment at the Mozamhitiuan port of Beira recently, and while American intelligence sources are quoted as saying that the shipment incluJ-d T.’J I and 'l's’l tanks and rocket-launchers. British and other analysts »ay that the arms were of the type customarily used in guerrilla warfare: rilles, light machine-guns, mortars, grenades, landmines, and elementary antitank weapons.

the assumption is that the so-called Zimbabwe Liberation Army intends to rely on guerrilla tactics in the first phase of its campaign against the Government in Salisbury iZimbahwi is the black nationalists’ nam< for Rhodesia). British and other European sources familiar with the country believe that guerrilla operations will initensify until 10,000 guerrillas have been committed. If these forces are held tn check by the Rhodesian Army and Air force, then the sources fear the arrival of heavier weapons, tanks, and rockets, and Cuban or other foreign forces, on the battlefield. The bulk of the weapons being used by the guerrillas are of Soviet manufacture and. according to analysis in America and abroad, this indicates that the Soviet Union is replacing China as the guerrillas’ chief source of money and supplies "As in Angola,” one

source said. “Rhodesia it aupportunifs for the Russianto show Black Africa ths they, and not ihe Chinese have the means, and th will, to support wars of nat ional liberation." Consequently. the enure expects that Soviet atm shipments will continue anthat, if necessary. Russi will send tieax iet weapon' including Jight surface-to-a missiles, io Mozambique The guerrillas’ milltar task is essentially sjniplt They must be able t infiltrate small groups dee ■ enough into Rhodesia t upset the countrv’s ecor iimy. which rests largely o agriculture. With their force strengtl the Rhodesians cannot e* pect to find and drive bar every intiltrating grout Their problem is analogou to that faced by the Unite States and South Vietnames forces a decade ago: a lon ‘frontier t > patrol against a enemy familiar with ever > foot of it