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The target was Amgala, five miles north of the Mauritanian border—the scene of a disastrous defeat of a combined Algerian-Saharoui force by a Moroccan armored column last February. Since then the Algerians have pulled their troops out of the Sahara. The 2,000 Saharoui residents of Amgala have also fled, and were replaced by 900 Moroccan soldiers. Polisario, as a result, shells Amgala regularly. The last attack, by another guerrilla force, occurred only three days before we set out.
Our assault was to take place in late afternoon so that any Moroccan F-5s scrambled from Aaiun, 120 miles away, would not find us before nightfall. Our force: four guerrillas in a 1974 Toyota Landcruiser and five more in an erratic 1965 Land-Rover. We crossed the Algerian border without incident. "Passaporto," joked one guerrilla in desert Spanish, stroking his Kalashnikov assault rifle. The vehicles rolled along wherever the drivers saw a path, whether it was soft sand or hard lava fields. Top speed under ideal conditions was 60 m.p.h.; our average was more like 20 m.p.h. We paused periodically to allow the guerrillas to pray, kneeling toward Mecca, and to wolf down strips of tough camel meat boiled in its own sinewy fat and garnished by dive-bombing flies.
At night we camped in the open; since headlights can be seen for ten miles in the desert, we bumped along in darkness looking for spots where talha trees or hills would provide protection. "A million-star hotel," jested one guerrilla familar with the Guide Michelin as he looked at the sky above. As soon as they camped, the guerrillas gathered branches and started a fire to warm themselves against the night chill. "In the past, I've made a big fire and hidden away near by," said Ahmed, the Toyota driver. "Then the Moroccans came to the fire and we trapped them. Now they're afraid of fire." Actually, the territory is so vast and Moroccan night patrols are so infrequent that detection would be a freakish misfortune.
Nearing Amgala, we switched to relatively new Land-Rovers in better repair; some had been captured in an ambush of Moroccan troops only three weeks earlier. More men arrived also; by the time we reached the target there were five cars containing 42 guerrillas and three 82-mm. recoilless rifles. Creeping around the town from the north, three carloads of guerrillas drove to within a mile of Amgala. Turbaned youths set up their Czech-made weapons pointing over the ridge. The other two cars, meanwhile, were posted to cover the escape. I crept up the black rocky terrain and rolled into a ridgetop foxhole dug for a previous bombardment.
Cut the Road. Our operation commander was Mohammed Fadel, 41, a former shopkeeper from Aaiun and a onetime French army noncom; when he gave an arm signal, the first rounds arched toward Amgala. After four blasts, the Moroccans returned fire. One shell exploded on hard lava 100 yards from a Polisario gun; most landed farther away, indicating either the enemy's inaccuracy or his confusion. Even so, after firing 19 rounds, the guerrillas suddenly dashed back to their cars and scurried away. As we drove down the ridge, another Moroccan round exploded 200 yards to the right. "Bombardimento," explained one young guerrilla helpfully.