Once ousted by the U.S.-backed 14 December 1960 countercoup by General Phoumi Nosavan, Kong Le and his paras retreated to the strategic Plain of Jars, gathering recruits to the neutralist cause along the way. Once established on the Plain as the "Forces Armées Neutralistes" (Neutral Armed Forces), this third side in the Laotian Civil War would begin to splinter as neutralists began to favor either the Communist or Royalist forces. In April 1963, the Patriotic Neutralists broke off to ally themselves with the communist Pathet Lao, while Kong Le engineered a rapprochement with the Royalists for FAN.