The TPDF surrounded the town on three sides and on 23 February, after beating off several harassing Ugandan probes, initiated an artillery barrage, concentrating on the Suicide Battalion's barracks.

The Suicide Battalion withdrew towards the village of Villa Maria, and, aside from opposition at Kasijagirwa camp, the TPDF seized the town with minimal resistance.

His promise to exact revenge on the local civilians for welcoming the invasion partly contributed to Nyerere's decision to attack Kampala.

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

Ugandan troops subsequently pillaged the area they occupied, murdering civilians, stealing cattle, and destroying property, triggering the flight of 40,000 inhabitants southward.

[5] In January 1979 the Tanzania People's Defence Force (TPDF) seized the Ugandan border town of Mutukula to counter any further threats to Kagera.

Obote assured Nyerere that if the locales were taken a mass uprising would take place against Amin's regime, deposing it in a few weeks and allowing the Tanzanians to exit the war.

[14] Between the TPDF's positions and Masaka was a series of locations occupied by Ugandan troops that needed to be cleared out, including an airstrip and various artillery batteries.

Tanzanian diplomats repeated Nyerere's proclamation that "Tanzania does not desire an inch of Ugandan territory" but evaded more specific questions about their troops' movements.

[21] They encircled Masaka on three sides, but were ordered not to move in, as an OAU meeting was convened in Nairobi in an attempt to provide mediation between the belligerents.

The Governor's building fell with the loudest bang one could ever have imagined, while the grass thatched huts and houses which had been erected for recreational purposes were set ablaze.

On the eve of 24 February, the TPDF initiated a large nighttime bombardment of Masaka, focusing their fire on the Suicide Battalion's barracks.

Feeling that the hill positions offered them sufficient cover for an extension of their deployment, some of the soldiers relocated to a pineapple field in the Masaka valley and entrenched themselves.

According to Rwehururu, many soldiers felt that the entire war had been instigated by the Suicide Battalion and thus believed that Masaka should be solely defended by that unit.

[25][32] Their assault focused on Kitovu (which had been left undefended by the Chui Battalion's desertion), Nyendo, and the pineapple field, before concentrating on Makasa proper.

[37] A battalion of Ugandan rebels captured Buchulo airfield and then destroyed the Masaka Town Hall and the local police station, which were being used as armouries.

[25][19] The Uganda Commercial Bank's local branch building was destroyed, causing the institution to run a deficit for the year,[40] as were the Masaka District administrative headquarters, the Chief Magistrates Court, the Tropic Inn hotel, the regional governor's offices,[41] the post office,[36] the hospital,[42] and the Masaka Recreation Ground facility.

[46] The day following the battle the TPDF and several dozen Ugandan rebels bombarded Mbarara and, after seizing it, destroyed what buildings remained with dynamite.

[48] Amin was enraged by the loss of Masaka, and upon hearing news of its capture during a meeting he reportedly drew a revolver and fired six shots into the ceiling.

Wishing to provide cover for the TPDF's actions and possibly incite a revolt in the Uganda Army, he requested Obote to pen a document supposedly written by the soldiers of the Suicide Battalion, declaring that they had mutinied and taken Masaka away from Amin's control on their own.

[50] In addition to its claims about the Suicide Battalion's mutiny, it requested "soldiers in every unit to follow our example so as to avoid further unnecessary loss of life.

"[51] Though most observers did not believe it to be genuine, the forged declaration—in the context of the overall confusion and lack of public information about the war—gave the Tanzanian Government means to dodge inquiries about its troops' activities in Uganda.

[52] After the former's fall the Ugandan government impounded many Rwandan trucks in the country to assist the war effort, contributing to shortages of fuel and other goods in Rwanda.

[53] Radio Uganda erroneously declared that Masaka was retaken on 28 February after intense fighting[51] despite the public announcement by Ugandan rebels that the town was under their control.

[26] According to the militant Yoweri Museveni, the rebels under his command recruited supporters in the Mbarara region, but Obote's men refrained from the doing the same in Masaka for fear that southern tribesmen would not be loyal to them, much to Muwanga's chagrin.

[56] The journalists Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey stated that Muwanga attempted to recruit new rebels, but that his closeness to Obote discouraged suspicious locals from signing up.

[58] Nyerere originally planned to halt his forces in Masaka and allow the Ugandan rebels to attack Kampala and overthrow Amin, as he feared that scenes of Tanzanian troops occupying the city would reflect poorly on his country's image abroad.

[41] Records of municipal property were lost when the town hall was destroyed, and in lieu of the documentation of ownership businessmen privatised the public lands for their own use.