only around 35 km from the border with South West Africa/Namibia (then under South African control), therefore making conventional assault possible, Cassinga was 260 km from the border and deep inside Angola. This meant that any conventional assault force would have to fight its way in and out, and would almost certainly have given advance warning to the PLAN (People's Liberation Army of Namibia – SWAPO's armed wing) soldiers in Cassinga, allowing them and leaders like Jerobeum 'Dimo' Amaambo (the PLAN commander-in-chief, then resident in Cassinga) and Greenwell Matongo to escape. Cassinga furthermore was located on a small hill, flanked by a river on its West side, and open fields in other directions, factors that combined to give any defenders the advantage. However, South African Defence Force (SADF) intelligence reports had ascertained that SWAPO – and probably its advisers – was lulled into a false sense of security because of Cassinga's distance from the Namibian border to the south. South African military intelligence briefings before the event indicated no awareness of any nearby supportive infantry or armoured units to support the base against a ground assault, and although SWAPO had been constructing a system of integrated defensive trenches and firing points for wheeled/tracked AFVs and AAA units, they were not then prepared for a joint-arms airborne attack. The SADF had not previously demonstrated any such capability, giving military analysts no reason to suspect that such an option was available to the SADF planners. The planners therefore believed that they could conduct a surprise attack on the base using only a lightly-armed airborne force. Earlier in that year, SAAF 12 Squadron had commenced training for a low-level strike role, utilising anti-personnel weapons such as cluster bombs. The South Africans knew about the success of Operation Eland and Operation Dingo, pre-emptive raids conducted in the previous two years by the Rhodesian Selous Scouts against guerilla forces based in Mozambique, and modeled their raid on many of the same principles. Though a risky plan it was decided that the element of surprise would outweigh the disadvantage of not having supporting armour on the ground. The SADF decided to mount a large airborne assault on Cassinga (by now code-named "Alpha"), supported by South African Air Force (SAAF) fighter-bombers and a fleet of 17 medium-transport helicopters. Using an exercise already underway called Exercise Kwiksilver as a cover story, the army initiated a call up of