Military commanders say their troops around this strategic southern garrison town have repelled three major offensives since December by combined South African and UNITA rebel forces. The officers also told reporters visiting the front that they were confident of holding the region despite daily long-range shelling by South African artillery. The officers said Wednesday that they expect more than 7,000 enemy troops to mount another major offensive soon from positions about 15 miles south of Cuito Cuanavale. The town is 190 miles north of the border of South Africa-ruled South-West Africa, also known as Namibia. Enemy troops include guerrillas of the National Union for the Total Independence on Angola, or UNITA, black soldiers from South-West Africa and South African soldiers. Angolan commanders said fighting has died down since their forces pushed back the South African-led army early this month. Angolan troops now respond with artillery fire to regular barrages of South African shells. A group of foreign reporters was caught in one such barrage on Wednesday when it visited a badly damaged steel and wooden bridge over the Cuito River, a mile south of town. ``Fighting picked up around Cuito Cuanavale in December,'' said Lt. Col. Ngueto, the town's military commander. ``Then the South Africans brought in mechanized units for their most recent offensive from Feb. 25 to March 1.'' ``The enemy has not given up the idea of taking Cuito Cuanavale,'' he said. ``The same units are still here.'' Government forces were everywhere in the former farming community, manning anti-aircraft batteries, tank positions, defensive trenches and sophisticated radar and communications equipment. Ngueto said the main objective of the South African and UNITA forces was to capture Cuito Cuanavale's military airport, a key facility for ferrying government troops and heavy equipment to the southern front from Luanda. The Angolan capital is 590 miles to the northwest on the Atlantic coast. UNITA, backed by South Africa and the United States, has been fighting an increasingly effective bush war since 1975 against Angola's Cuban- and Soviet-backed government. ``This airfield can handle an awful lot of traffic and they want to control it to launch attacks further north in Cuando-Cubango province and up to central Angola,'' Ngueto said. He said South African and UNITA patrols already had traveled north along narrow corridors through the bush to launch attacks in the Cuemba region of central Bie province. Cuemba, 190 miles north of Cuito, is the farthest South African troops are thought to have penetrated into Angola since 1976, when they fought alongside UNITA in the civil war that broke out after independence from Portugal the previous year. Pock marks on the walls of buildings in Cuito indicated they had been sprayed by small arms fire, but the town has not been taken by South African or rebel forces, despite long months of siege. In December, South African forces blew up two sections of the Cuito River bridge, which is made of heavy timbers and reinforced concrete pilings. The Angolans have replaced them with makeshift ropes and planks that sag down to water level. After speaking to government sentries on the east bank of the river Wednesday, reporters were heading back across the bridge when the first shell hit about 40 yards away, sending up spray from the marshy bank. Seven more shells exploded as the party scrambled back to an armored vehicle and drove back through the town. ``The South Africans shoot here off and on every day,'' Maj. Armindo Moreira said as the shells went off. He added that some residents have had to move away from the river. Angolan soldiers and Cuban support troops were seen on the road out of town for about 15 miles, supporting government statements that Cuban troops are in the area at the rear of Angolan lines, about five miles from the front. About 40,000 Cuban soldiers are based in Angola, supporting the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
