Uganda-Tanzania War

The Uganda-Tanzania War, called the Kagera War in Tanzania and the 1979 Liberation War in Uganda, was an interstate conflict fought between Uganda and Tanzania from October 1978 until June 1979. It followed years of worsening relations after Idi Amin overthrew Milton Obote, an ally of the Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere, in 1971. Ugandan forces made incursions into Tanzania in October 1978 and then invaded and declared the annexation of the Kagera Salient. Tanzania mobilised its People's Defence Force and backed Ugandan exiles, and its troops pushed into southern Uganda and defeated a combined Ugandan, Libyan and Palestinian force at Lukaya in March 1979. A Tanzanian and Ugandan rebel force took Kampala in April 1979, Amin fled into exile, and a new government of the Uganda National Liberation Front was installed. The war strained both economies and was followed by renewed fighting in Uganda from 1980.