to the ex-ZIPRA deserters simply as "dissidents". In the wake of escalating dissident activity, Mugabe announced his intention to form a fifth infantry brigade composed solely of ex-ZANLA troops. In August 1981, two preexisting ZANLA battalions and an additional 3,000 ZANLA guerrillas from various units were selected for training in the new 5th Brigade. The officers were largely drawn from ex-ZANLA officer candidates whose poor educational qualifications had resulted in their failing standardised officer school. A smaller number of ex-ZIPRA officers from 4th Brigade were also transferred to the 5th Brigade to serve in various technical and specialist roles. Unlike the ZNA's other four brigades, this unit was to be armed and trained by a special North Korean military mission, which was chosen to train the newly-formed brigade because of Mugabe's admiration for North Korea's dictatorial regime. The 5th Brigade was not structured for conventional military operations but rather as a specialized counter-insurgency unit. Ex-ZIPRA and Rhodesian troops resented the brigade for its apparent exclusiveness and the fact that it was permitted to operate independently from the ZNA's normal command structure, being subordinate only to the Chief of the Army. The 5th Brigade was trained from August 1981, when the first North Korean military advisers arrived in Zimbabwe, to June 1982 at Inyanga, an isolated mountain base near the Zimbabwean-Mozambican border. It was then moved to its permanent base in Gweru. At the time of its formation, the 5th Brigade was the ZNA's only mechanised infantry brigade, and most of its arsenal—including T-54 tanks, BTR-152 armoured personnel carriers, BRDM-2 scout cars, towed anti-tank artillery, and multiple rocket launchers, far exceeded the capabilities of ground weapons in the other four brigades' inventories. However, serious practical difficulties also resulted in the brigade's use of unique codes and radio equipment which were otherwise incompatible with those of other army units. Mozambican Civil War The 5th Brigade was one of the first ZNA units to be deployed into Mozambique during the Mozambican Civil War. In mid-1982 the brigade was deployed to defend a strategic rail line from Beira to the Zimbabwean border from sabotage attempts by the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO). Counteroffensives against RENAMO were jointly planned at the command level by Zimbabwean, Mozambican, and North Korean officers. Tensions with ex-ZIPRA forces The 5th Brigade's independent nature soon placed it at sometimes violent odds with other brigades of the ZNA. In September 1982, some