Chapter 764: The Verge
China's sudden presence in Africa has long attracted the attention of the CIA, and the CIA's infiltration in Africa is almost pervasive compared to the weakness of Chinese intelligence. In the ranks of Colonel Kurtu and Lazaro, a lot of information on the Chinese side was obtained.
Despite the support card. During the Kurtu process, the Chinese personnel were very careful, and basically through Colonel Lazaro came forward to do specific things, but in order to get the card. The resources that need to be invested in the establishment of Kurtu are by no means determined by the ability of Colonel Lazaro. After the development of Kurtu, the Chinese side still consciously revealed some information. Kurtu understands that behind him, in fact, there is a shadow of a great power, which can make Ka. Kurtu is more aware of his position and future if it is only Colonel Lazaro behind him. Kurtu thinks it's good to be able to dominate Kalemie.
But now that there are Chinese behind them. Even if we don't dare to reach the pinnacle of the DRC's military power now, we should at least run rampant in the eastern DRC and become the hegemon of the domestic side. So card. Kurtu was able to resist some of his immediate impulses to make money, and acted on the advice of the advisers sent in the name of Colonel Lazaro, and sure enough, he quickly seized the territory of a province.
People are talkative, card. Kurtu has a large territory, and there are more people under him, and it is inevitable that some people will come from a more complex source, and the Americans are borrowing cards. The opportunity for Kurtu's massive expansion to put his own people in and put them in the card. Kurtu, a rising star in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has figured out some unusual moves by the Chinese side on the ground.
Wait until the Chinese side launches Esta again. When Ruatu, Noland of the CIA decided that China could no longer be allowed to develop unscrupulously in the DRC, because in terms of resource reserves, the DRC is far from being comparable to Tanzania, not only the land area is several times larger, but also the resource reserves are many kinds of the world's first, you must know that this has been proven so far, and many tropical rainforest areas have not had time to explore due to the harsh conditions.
However, this information is enough, for the Chinese in Africa, although Norland's CIA did not understand China's urgent need for various rare metals, but in the face of China's strong penetration into the Western circle of African interests, and even began to station troops in Tanzania, these unusual signs made Norland decide that he could no longer sit idly by.
Under the impetus of the CIA, the U.S. African Command James Brown Command. Lieutenant General Reilly was ordered to drive the PLA out of Africa. Although its 1st Armored Brigade Heavy Tank Unit and Division Headquarters are stationed in northern Africa, the 2nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade is stationed in Sudan and the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Brigade is stationed in Kenya.
With such military strength, and the fact that Uganda, Burundi, and Kenya are now allies of the U.S. military, although the U.S. military has not modernized the armies of these countries, it is not a problem to assemble 3-5 more powerful infantry brigades from these allies. What's more, the U.S. military has also updated Uganda's air force, allowing Uganda to have 12 third-generation F-16C/D fighters, which are rare in the region.
Therefore, James. Lieutenant General Reilly believes that the military defeat of the PLA's 86th Mechanized Infantry Brigade is not a big problem, but that the US military needs a reasonable excuse for this action. Although there are constant conflicts between China and the United States, and the relationship is tense, after all, the two sides have not completely torn their faces into a state of declaration of war, so it is better to have a reasonable excuse for such a violent "local conflict" so as not to let China and the United States directly fall into a state of war, and now the American economy has fallen into a serious crisis after China has withdrawn its foreign exchange reserves, and because China continues to sell US bonds, US bond interest rates have begun to soar, which is undoubtedly a heavy blow to the heavily indebted Yankees.
And if a full-scale conflict breaks out between China and the United States, it is bound to be even worse, although Americans believe that China will suffer a greater blow, but compared with the Chinese, who are known for their endurance, Americans who are accustomed to living a good life will certainly not be able to accept it, once they are frustrated on the battlefield again, most Americans will show strong anti-war sentiment towards the war, and compared to most ordinary Americans, this is a completely inexplicable war.
So James. Lieutenant General Reilly needed a very strong pretext for military involvement.
Spring breeze triumphant card. Kurtu soon realized that something was wrong, and that the local armed forces of the CNDP and the M23 Movement in the provinces of South Kivu and North Kivu, which had been somewhat at odds, began to move frequently, but there was no sign of a fiery merger between them, but on the contrary, they began to move towards the border with Tanganyika province rather tacitly.
Despite the card. Kurtu expanded his forces to more than 3,000 men, but before completing the unification of the Katanga region, Kaht. Kurtu is very wise to keep the river water from the well water with these northern warlords, because both the CNDP and the M23 Movement have stronger local forces in the north than the Kah. Kurtu's current strength is that the troops of the two provinces in South Kivu and North Kivu have more than 5,000 troops, let alone join forces. Therefore, until the whole of Katanga is annexed and the power is inflated again, Kakurtu will never provoke these warlords in the north.
But now it seems that the situation is quite bad, even if the card . Kurtu did not provoke them, but judging from the other party's movements, he had great intentions to go south. Just got a taste of the cards of power. Kurtu was very nervous for a while, and he put more than half of his elite forces into the defense of the northern front, and four fully equipped infantry battalions were placed in the small town of Rukengo, a small city of only a few thousand people, holding Highway 5 from the north to Kalemi and Highway 33 from the west to Kalemie, which was the most important line of defense north of Kalemie.
In order to hold this strategic location, Ka. Kurtu urgently appealed to Colonel Lazaro and his military advisers for increased military reinforcements. Senior Colonel Song Jihong of the 86th Mechanized Infantry Brigade of Kurtu Military Assistance, after carefully studying the military intelligence collected by the drones dispatched, judged that the warlords in the north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo did indeed have the intention of moving southward on a large scale. Judging from the number of troops that have been assembled, the armed forces of the CNDP and the M23 Movement together have exceeded 5,000 people. Kurtu is an unusually formidable military force if not enhanced card. Kurtu's military power, stuck in this war. Kurtu is bound to lose.
In the slave card. After Kurtu obtained information on the firepower of the troops of these northern warlords, Senior Colonel Song Jihong was in Ka. On the basis of the existing firepower of the Kurtu infantry battalion, an additional fire company was added to each infantry battalion. The fire company is equipped with three fire platoons, one machine gun platoon providing six squad light machine guns and three 12.7 mm heavy machine guns, a mortar heavy fire platoon providing three 82 mm mortars and six 60 mm mortars, and a rocket launcher mobile fire platoon providing eight rocket launchers.
Although the firepower of this firepower is still much inferior to that of the ordinary infantry battalion of the People's Liberation Army, it is close to the level of the existing regular army infantry battalion in Tanzania. The effective radius of 60 mm mortar shells is 17.8 meters, and the radius of 82 mm mortar shells is 22 meters.
According to the calculations of the staff of the 86th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, the 3 infantry battalions formed crossfire, which was enough to form a 5-kilometer death zone around Highway 5 north of Rukengo! The only thing worrying now is the card. The fighting will and fighting quality of this group of soldiers under Kurtu, the use of mortars is by no means just a person can be hit, so the card . Kurtu's receipt of this emergency military aid was also mixed.
The good news is that his troops have these heavy weapons, and the firepower is so powerful that only the elite government forces near Kinshasa can compare with them; The worry is that when I get this batch of heavy weapons all at once, I can't find so many suitable soldiers to operate.
In particular, 9 82-mm mortars, which are Ka. The most powerful firepower in the hands of Kurtu, Ka. Kurtu did not want to leave all his precious shells empty due to the lack of training of his soldiers, and the enemy was now entangled in a huge army of more than 5,000 men, and his own troops defending Rukengo were less than a third of the enemy's strength, and these heavy weapons were the key to his victory.
In the card. When Kurtu was worried, one of his henchmen remembered the special group of "elite Tanzanian government forces" who had fought side by side with him, so he suggested that Ka. Kurtu asked Colonel Lazaro to send part of his men to operate the heavy firepower, while his own men were tasked with assisting and learning. For cards. For his part, it was natural for Kurtu to ask for help from an ally in a civil war, and he didn't care if the ally was from the same country as him.
So after hearing this advice from his subordinates, the card. Kurtu immediately contacted Colonel Lazaro, and after consultation with Colonel Song Jihong, Colonel Lazaro agreed to the card. At Kurtu's request, Senior Colonel Song Jihong transferred 9 mortar operators from the 86th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, mixed with the 30 Tanzanian elite soldiers selected by Colonel Lazaro, and together formed a Sino-Tanzanian joint team without military uniforms, and secretly sent them to Rukengo by helicopter, where they changed into the military uniforms of the Congolese government army. A special unit in the army of Colonel Kurtu.
A major war in the eastern part of the DRC is on the verge of breaking out.