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2021-09-20 Africa Subsaharan
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Congo-Kinshasa: Quick Reaction Forces to the Rescue in Eastern DRC
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[All Africa] Can a revamped Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) turn the tide against the malignant Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
-linked gang that continues to terrorise the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
 ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo , which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
(DRC)?The FIB is staffed by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and attached to the United Nations
Continued from Page 2
...an idea whose time has gone...
Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). For the past few years, the brigade has done little to implement its aggressive mandate to neutralise gangs like the Allied Democratic Forces
 ...the ADF is one of several murderous Moslem groups in NE Congo. In 2019 the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on them for the usual reasons. They don't appear to be affiliated with al-Qaeda or Islamic State, though ISIS claims their work from time to time — they just like killing infidels....
(ADF) in the east of the country. So last year, the UN decided to restructure the FIB and include troops from Kenya and Nepal.
The original FIB, comprising three battalions from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi, went into the DRC in 2013. It registered almost immediate success in its first campaign against the M23 rebels backed by Rwanda. After that it was supposed to tackle the other gangs in the region, like the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda and the ADF.
But those campaigns have not gone well, particularly against the ADF, which operates in the Beni district of North Kivu province. On the Semuliki bridge in December 2017, 14 FIB peacekeepers and five soldiers from the DRC's defence force - the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) - were killed. And then, in the Usalama operation in November 2018, nine peacekeepers were killed and two went missing.
The FIB did little to implement its aggressive mandate to neutralise armed forces in the eastern DRC
The ADF has continued to massacre civilians and a 'state of siege' declared in May by DRC President Félix Tshisekedi in North Kivu and Ituri has apparently had little impact. The ADF has proved a far tougher foe than the M23. Originally from Uganda, it has been in the DRC since the 1990s. Fighters have entrenched themselves into Beni, with an intimate knowledge of the terrain, extensive smuggling networks for financing, and strong support from some locals.
And while the M23 was a fairly conventional and visible military force that could be attacked with conventional weapons, the ADF is a classic guerrilla operation. It attacks civilians and then retreats rapidly into the jungle before the FARDC or FIB arrive.
The ADF is also completely ruthless. Its most notorious and troublesome tactic is to respond to FARDC and FIB offensives with massive reprisals against civilians. Some suspect the increasing brutality and effectiveness of the group may be owed to its affiliation in 2019 to Islamic State through its Central Africa Province.
Another hindrance in the fight against the ADF has been inadequate coordination between the FARDC and MONUSCO/FIB, for a variety of reasons. These include a refusal by the UN to work with some FARDC generals accused of human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
violations, and suspicion that some FARDC troops have committed atrocities. FARDC generals have also sometimes been reluctant to share operational intelligence with the FIB.
These factors - along with fear of a ruthless enemy and concerns about provoking reprisals against civilians - appear to have kept FIB countries from participating in offensives against ADF since October 2019. The Kivu Security Tracker has recorded only five ground engagements between the brigade and ADF in Beni after that, none of which was initiated by the FIB.
With new MONUSCO leadership, cooperation with the new DRC government may be easier
But the brigade's relative inaction sparked demonstrations - some of which turned deadly - by the Congolese population against MONUSCO/FIB for doing so little to protect them. Local approval of MONUSCO dropped to only 47% in March 2021 from 68% two years earlier, according to a poll by the Congo Research Group.
All of this prompted the UN Security Council to send the former head of MONUSCO's military arm, Lieutenant General Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, to assess the FIB in late 2019. His confidential report led to a UN proposal to reorganise the brigade. Along with initiating offensives against gangs, it would acquire several quick reaction forces. The tactical thinking appeared to be that instead of just launching operations that provoked ADF retaliation, the FIB would respond rapidly to attacks on civilians.
After initially rejecting the proposal in August 2020 because it would introduce non-SADC elements and reduce its control, SADC accepted it at a special summit in November of that year.
UN military sources say the new FIB still comprises three battlegroups from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi. It has also acquired four quick reaction forces, two from Tanzania and Kenya, which are already in place, plus two more from South Africa and Nepal, which are yet to be deployed.
Many worry that military intervention is not being accompanied by any political strategy
Since good intelligence will be key to rapid action that saves civilian lives, the revamped FIB has new intelligence units staffed by Tanzanians and South Africans. It's too early to say if these changes will make the brigade more effective, especially against the ADF.
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Posted by Fred 2021-09-20 00:00||
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