The TPDF's 201st Brigade was then instructed to secure Lukaya and its causeway to the north, which served as the only direct route through a large swamp to Kampala, the Ugandan capital.

On the morning of 10 March, the TPDF's 201st Brigade under Brigadier Imran Kombe, bolstered by a battalion of Ugandan rebels, occupied Lukaya without incident.

In 1971, Colonel Idi Amin launched a military coup that overthrew the President of Uganda, Milton Obote, precipitating a deterioration of relations with neighbouring Tanzania.

[7] Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi felt that Uganda, a Muslim state in his view, was being threatened by a Christian army, and wished to halt the Tanzanians.

However, Ugandan rebel forces did not have the strength to defeat the incoming Libyan units, so Nyerere decided to use the TPDF to take the capital.

[12] A plan to destroy the causeway was presented to Amin in Kampala, but he rejected it, saying that it would inhibit his army's ability to launch a counteroffensive against the Tanzanians.

[8] According to diplomats, Amin initially planned to make a defensive "last stand" at Mpigi, a town located south of Kampala and north of Lukaya.

[14] On 9 March over a thousand Libyan troops[12] and about 40 Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) guerrillas belonging to Fatah were flown into Uganda.

[12][26][27][c] The Libyan and PLO commanders drew up plans for a counteroffensive in great secrecy due to fears that the Uganda Army included illoyal elements.

[29] The PLO fighters were integrated into the Ugandan units, with Colonel Hamdan co-commanding tank and infantry forces, while Major Erekat assumed command of part of the artillery.

[12] Though others remained at their defensive positions, they were nonetheless surprised and quickly forced to withdraw into the swamp along the Masaka road after seeing the Libyan T-55s and three Ugandan M4A1 Sherman tanks advancing toward them.

The 208th Brigade under Brigadier Mwita Marwa, which was 60 kilometres (37 mi) north-west of the town, was ordered to reverse course and as quickly as possible cut off the Ugandans and Libyans from Kampala.

Overnight the situation was dominated by confusion; the Ugandan-Libyan-Palestinian force and the TPDF's 201st Brigade were disorganised, and troops from both sides moved around in the darkness (there was no moonlight) along the road and in the town, unable to differentiate between each other.

[36][22] In one incident, Oyite-Ojok was leading a band of Kikosi Maalum (KM) fighters down the road when they heard other persons talking in Swahili.

One group used a 7.5 cm anti-tank gun to fend off the leading Tanzanian tank, slightly damaging it and halting its advance for a short while.

[15] At his headquarters farther north, Ugandan Lieutenant Colonel Abdu Kisuule, commander of the Artillery & Signals Regiment,[22] was awakened by the withdrawing Libyans.

The Ugandan troops nonetheless felt that Maliyamungu and Gowon were harbingers of misfortune and nicknamed them bisirani (English: bad omen).

[29] Sule was later killed after being accidentally run over by one his tanks while ordering it to reverse course to manoeuvre around a crater created by a Tanzanian artillery shell.

Independent diplomatic sources acknowledged that immediate details of the battle were unclear, but labeled the inflicted casualties claimed by both belligerents as greatly exaggerated.

[48] In a meeting with foreign diplomats on 15 March, Amin stated that his forces had suffered heavy losses, including the death of a lieutenant colonel and five captains.

[52] The historians Tom Cooper and Adrien Fontanellaz concluded that "after the Battle of Lukaya, the Uganda Army de-facto collapsed and ran".

[20] His situation becoming more desperate and his appeals to the United Nations, Arab League, and Organisation of African Unity having little effect, Amin requested that Pope John Paul II intervene and call for an end to the war.

[54] Charles Njonjo, the Attorney General of Kenya, told journalists in an off-the-record meeting that the TPDF had suffered difficulties at Lukaya and were going to deal with continuous problems in the face of the Libyan intervention.

[56] Despite the favourable outcome, Tanzanian commanders felt that the Battle of Lukaya had been waged disastrously; had the Ugandans and Libyans pushed beyond the town after occupying it, they could have retaken Masaka and driven the TPDF out of Uganda.

[57] On 13 March Tanzanian Junior Minister of Defence Moses Nnauye and Musuguri met with veterans of the engagement to find out more about what happened.

[25] Shortly after occupying Lukaya,[46] the TPDF launched Operation Dada Idi, and in the following days the 207th and 208th Brigades cleared the Kampala road and captured Mpigi[26] on 28 March.

[63] Tanzanian commanders had originally assumed that Amin would station the bulk of his forces in the capital, and their initial plans called for a direct attack on the city.

Nyerere also feared that further conflict with Libyan troops would incite Afro-Arab tensions and invite armed belligerence of other Arab states.

[69][70] Despite the PLO's overall involvement in the Ugandan war effort, Nyerere did not harbour any ill will towards the organisation, instead citing its isolation on the international stage as the reason for its closeness to Amin.

[12] The PLO portrayed the Battle of Lukaya as a de facto victory, claiming that it had inflicted terrible losses on the TPDF and the eventual Ugandan defeat only stemmed from the incapabilities of the Uganda Army.