Nigeria: Fighting in the Mist

Teen-age girls and Teddy boys in tight pants, neatly dressed middle-class merchants and shoeless old men in tattered togas last week formed civil defense groups in besieged Biafra, the secessionist Nigerian state that is under attack from federal forces. Largely Ibo tribesmen, they joined together to resist an invading army that was made up mainly of the rival Hausa tribe, whose members last year slaughtered thousands of Ibos in Northern Nigeria. The Biafran volunteers searched automobiles at roadblocks, practiced grenade throwing and ambushing. At a Port Harcourt automotive assembly plant, Biafran...

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