[5] Over a span of eight months, a large party of chimpanzees separated themselves into the southern area of Kasakela and were renamed the Kahama community.

[6] The site has steep slopes of open woodland rising above stream valleys lush with riverine forest.

The Kasakela males, led by the newly dominant Figan, included Satan, Sherry, Evered, Rodolf, Jomeo, Mike, Humphrey.

[16] However, his kindness was no longer reciprocated when a Kasakela patrol consisting of Figan, Faben, Humphrey, Satan, and Jomeo ambushed him.

The researcher who observed this attack was shocked by the brutality and fury displayed by the Kasakela group, with Faben twisting Goliath's leg as if he was trying to tear it off.

His death was not directly observed, but fishermen reported hearing "sounds of fierce conflict"; three days later, his corpse was found with "terrible injuries" at the Kahama Stream.

[18] The Kasakela thus succeeded in taking over the Kahama's former territory,[22] and spent the time after their victory moving through and feeding in this area.

[24] Goodall reasoned that the Kahama had functioned as a buffer, and the Kalande now began expanding northward into Kasakela areas.

[23] Cowed by the superior strength and numbers of the Kalande, as well as a few violent skirmishes along their border, the Kasakela quickly gave up much of their new territory.

Beset from north and south, the Kasakela territory shrank to 5 square kilometres (1.9 sq mi) by 1981, barely sufficient to feed them.

The Kasakela community's complete collapse was averted by their unusual number of young males growing up at the time.

Though they were neither strong nor experienced enough to actually fight the Kalande and Mitumba, their noisy displays alongside the older males succeeded in intimidating their rivals, and the Kasakela regained some territory.

Frodo was born in early 1976 and spent his first years in the Four-Year War and a simultaneous "infanticide streak" by two Kasakela females.

[26] Coupled with her 1975 observation of cannibalistic infanticide by a high-ranking female in the community, the Gombe war revealed the "dark side" of chimpanzee behavior.

Often when I woke in the night, horrific pictures sprang unbidden to my mind—Satan [one of the apes], cupping his hand below Sniff's chin to drink the blood that welled from a great wound on his face; old Rodolf, usually so benign, standing upright to hurl a four-pound rock at Godi's prostrate body; Jomeo tearing a strip of skin from Dé's thigh; Figan, charging and hitting, again and again, the stricken, quivering body of Goliath, one of his childhood heroes.

[32] Some scientists accused her of excessive anthropomorphism;[32] others suggested that her presence, and her practice of feeding the chimpanzees, had created violent conflict in a naturally peaceful society.

[33][34] A 2018 study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology concluded that the Gombe War was most likely a consequence of a power struggle between three high-ranking males, which was exacerbated by an unusual scarcity of fertile females.