Operation Hooper
| Operation Hooper | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale | |||
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| Belligerents | |||
 Cuba
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 UNITA
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| Commanders and leaders | |||
| Colonel Deon Ferreira | |||
| Units involved | |||
| 25th, 59th and 21st brigades | 61 Mechanized Battalion | ||
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Operation Hooper was a military operation by the South African Defence Force (SADF) during the South African Border War. This operation forms part of what has come to be called the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. The Cubans' objective was securing the town of Cuito Cuanavale on the west of the river from capture. The SADF objective was to drive the People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) west across the river or to destroy them, so as to ensure that FAPLA was no longer a threat to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in the south-east. The FAPLA advance was permanently halted, UNITA lived to fight on for another 15 years. The SADF never attempted to capture the town. Both sides claimed victory.
Directly following on from Operation Moduler, by November the SADF had cornered the remnants of three FAPLA units on the east of the Cuito River, across from the town itself and was poised to destroy them. The quite demoralised 59th FAPLA motorised infantry brigade, 21st and 25th FAPLA light infantry brigades, in positions near Tumpo and east of the Cuito River, were effectively cut off due to SADF artillery control of both the bridge and airstrip and to UNITA guerrilla control of the road from Menongue, which they had mined and were prepared to ambush.
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