GOVERNMENT forces regained control of a northwestern Angolan town after a seven-hour firefight with Unita rebels that left 10 people dead, news reports said on Monday. The rebels had seized Cambatela, a small town about 400 kilometers east of Luanda last Wednesday after the local army garrison retreated under heavy fire. The government recaptured it on Friday, according to Roman Catholic radio station Ecclesia. There was no information on the identities of the dead. During their brief control of Cambatela, the rebels addressed the local population in a rally, telling them they would not harm civilians and were only searching for food. The rebel forces fled after Friday’s clash, taking along young men and cattle from the town. There was no information on the size of the warring forces. The government and Unita have been engaged in low-intensity fighting since the government ousted Unita from its central highland strongholds in a major offensive last year. Angola has been torn by civil war most of the time since the country’s independence from Portugal in 1975.