...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
troops have killed a senior commander in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan army front man said on Tuesday, part of efforts to track down the guerrilla group and send its leader to the Hague.
US Special Forces have supported a Regional Task Force (RTF) of African troops since 2011 to try to track down LRA leader Joseph Kony
... The Lords Resistance Army is a religious and military group formed in 1987. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the
spokesperson of Godand a spirit medium, and who is periodically possessed by demons, Beelzebub and Legion prominent among them. Kony advises his soldiers to draw crosses on their chests as a protection against bullets. This does't work, but nobody outside the LRA minds. The group is based on a hodge podge of apocalyptic Christianity, mysticism, and traditional Acholi religion, and claims to be establishing a theocratic state based on an odd interpretation of the Ten Commandments. The LRA is famous for systematic criminal conduct, including murder, abduction, mutilation, sexual enslavement of women and children, forcing children to participate in hostilities, and occasional cannibalism. The LRA operates mainly in northern Uganda and also in parts of Sudan, Central African Republic and DR Congo...
, wanted by the
International Criminal Court... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in a guerrilla war in Uganda and neighbouring states.
The group, which launched its uprising two decades ago, has moved from Uganda to the border region of Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR), where analysts say it could rebuild in the political chaos sweeping through the country.
"We were alerted last week by our US partners about a group of 30 LRA fighters who were about to cross River Vovodo in southeastern CAR," said Uganda's deputy army front man, Major Robert Ngabirano.
"We subsequently deployed and managed to kill 14 including Colonel Samuel Kangul who is Kony's chief planner and No. 4 in their hierarchy. Some others drowned in the river and we were also able to capture one alive," he said, adding the team had also captured weapons and two satellite phones.
A US Special Forces adviser in South Sudan, speaking to Rooters on the condition of anonymity, said a US helicopter ferried Ugandan troops with the RTF into CAR's remote Vovodo and Chinko river basin on 22 November. The mission lasted a week.
He did not give details about LRA members killed in the mission involving 20 Ugandan commandos with US personnel, although he put the number at five to 10 deaths.
"The river basin has been denied now as an area LRA previously had freedom of movement," he said. "The operation also resulted in a lot of belt and magazine fed military weapons being captured."