Kidnapping threats bring tighter Angola security

HUAMBO, Angola (Reuters) -- Angolan government troops and aid agencies are tightening security in this central highland city in the face of kidnapping threats and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi's birthday next week.

A United Nations security official said aid agencies in the central highland city of Huambo, 520 kilometers (312 miles) southeast of the capital Luanda, had been instructed to follow an 11 p.m. curfew, increase radio checks when travelling to surrounding villages and return by 5 p.m.

"The rebels still have the capability to plan and to strike as soon as they see a slight weakness in Angolan government defenses," U.N. security officer Gunnar Mattson-Marn said.

Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) has been waging a 25-year battle against Luanda since colonial Portugal ceded control to the former Marxist MPLA government.

The 1994 peace pact, known as the Lusaka Protocol, broke down in December 1998 after the government and UNITA resumed the civil war that began after freedom from Portugal in 1975.

Government intelligence reports have warned that UNITA intends to kidnap international staff as part of its stepped-up guerrilla campaign.

Provinces such a Bie and Huambo, traditional rebel strongholds with large numbers of aid agencies, would appear to be prime targets, Mattson-Marn said.

"Their objective is to get headlines, to show that UNITA is still strong and still capable," a senior government intelligence officer said.

Huambo, Savimbi's home during the shaky peace from 1996 to 1998, is rife with infiltrators and rebel supporters, aid staffers say.

Government troops are on maximum alert, tightening checkpoints and increasing arbitrary searches in anticipation of Savimbi's 66th birthday on August 3, although the event has not triggered attacks in the past.

To thwart disguised rebels attempting to assassinate senior government military and political officials, soldiers have been prohibited from carrying guns in the city.

And soldiers caught shooting without reason before Savimbi's birthday are to be imprisoned. That measure followed an unnerving shooting spree during the evening of July 19.

In the past month, government troops have caught women smuggling ammunition out of the city concealed in jugs of kisangwa, a maize drink, and grenades around babies slung to their backs.

The government is sweeping areas north of the city in a bid to wipe out a guerrilla band that has struck repeatedly since February.

The latest raid on July 14 killed a guard and looted a farm run by Trappist nuns 10 kilometers (six miles) north of Huambo. It was also looted in an attack on May 8. Nuns were absent both times.

About 100 rebels on July 9 killed one child, wounded three and abducted 21 others from an orphanage eight kilometers (five miles) northwest of the city. Two boys escaped, the second time they had slipped away from UNITA this year, and were able to help pinpoint rebel locations.

UNITA rebels have frequently launched hit-and-run attacks on Huambo since April, destroying television antennae in the city and targeting government-manned checkpoints.

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