Libyan POWs Are Being Taken to Zaire, Radio Says
About 600 Libyan prisoners of war said to have been trained by the United States in Chad to destabilize the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi are being flown to Zaire, state radio reported Friday.
Zairian radio, monitored in Congo, said the prisoners were being taken to a U.S.-run base at Kamina.
The 600 dissident soldiers, who were among 2,000 captured by Chad during its war with Libya in the mid-1980s but who later renounced support for the Libyan strongman, were evacuated from Chad by the United States amid great secrecy last weekend.
The evacuation followed the Dec. 1 overthrow of the anti-Kadafi Chadian government of Hissen Habre by the Libyan-supplied forces of Gen. Idriss Deby.
The broadcast said Zaire had accepted the prisoners with the approval of Libya, which preferred to see them housed in Zaire rather than some other country.
Libya has said the prisoners were held in U.S.-run camps in Chad and forced to train as anti-Kadafi terrorists.
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