Angolan Army Claims Slaying of Rebel Leader

LUANDA, Angola —  Jonas Savimbi, leader of the rebel group that has fought the government and frustrated peace efforts for nearly three decades, was killed Friday in a military attack on UNITA forces in southeast Angola, the army and government said.

The armed forces said Savimbi, 67, died around 3 p.m. in an offensive in Moxico province.

There was no independent confirmation of the claim. UNITA officials, who are hiding in the Angolan bush, were not available for comment.

Savimbi was a key U.S. ally during the 1980s as the United States sought to counter Soviet advances in Africa. His influence waned, however, as the Soviet Union came apart and U.S. relations with Angola improved over the past decade.

If confirmed, Savimbi’s death could open the way for long-lasting peace in the southwest African country where civil war has raged off and on for 27 years.

Half a million people are believed to have died because of the war, though there are no confirmed figures. About 4 million people--roughly one-third of the population--have been driven from their homes by the fighting.

Savimbi’s animosity toward President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled since 1977, has repeatedly frustrated international efforts to end the fighting. Three peace deals have collapsed.

The government said Friday it was ready to fully implement a 1994 peace accord calling for regular democratic elections.

Aldemiro Vaz de Conceicao, the presidential spokesman, said the army was holding Savimbi’s body in Moxico.

In several neighborhoods, local residents hooted their car horns in celebration Friday.

Police urged calm. Two police helicopters hovered over the coastal city, and red tracers from automatic weapons fired by the presidential guard streaked across the night sky. Several thousand elite troops were guarding the presidential palace on the outskirts of the capital.

It was not clear whether anyone from UNITA’s ranks could replace Savimbi. UNITA Vice President Antonio Dembo and Savimbi’s close aide Paulo Lukamba Gato are believed to be alive and hiding in rural Angola.

His death could also prompt a power struggle within the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA, which was united by the fight against Savimbi.

The army in recent months has said it was closing in on Savimbi’s column, which was moving through the rural province of Moxico, about 480 miles southeast of Luanda. Savimbi had not been seen for several years.

Born into a poor family in the village of Munhango in Angola’s central highlands, Savimbi was a university-educated guerrilla who spoke three African languages and four European languages.

He founded UNITA, the Portuguese acronym for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, in 1966 to battle the colonial Portuguese administration, and ruled the group ruthlessly for three decades.

Savimbi became a key player in the Cold War struggle for dominance in Africa, becoming a proxy for the United States and South Africa in the battle against the Marxist government.

Savimbi enjoyed the strong support during the 1980s of the Reagan administration, which saw him as a stalwart anti-communist rebel in his fight against the pro-Soviet government and its Cuban allies. He was received at the White House like a head of state in 1986, and Savimbi’s UNITA forces received millions in covert American assistance.