Operation Leopard
In May 1978, a group of communist guerillas from nearby Angola attacks the mining town of Kolwezi in Katanga, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo, the former Belgian Congo). The Europeans who work for the Belgian mining company and the Blacks who live in town are taken as hostages by the invaders, who begin a bloodbath, shooting both Europeans and Africans. Because many of the Europeans are French, the French decide to organize a counter-attack and send a regiment of Foreign Legion paratroopers. The film follows the stories of Delbart, a former non-commissioned officer who was about to return to France with his African wife and child, Damrémont, Delbart's replacement, Bia, a Zairian doctor, and Annie, an American married to a Belgian engineer, as well as Non com Legion officer Federico and the French Ambassador and Military Attaché.