WASHINGTON: About 100 US troops that President Barack Obama ordered to Uganda last month to help crush the cult-like Lord's Resistance Army will probably remain deployed until the group's leader is captured or dead, the top US commander for Africa has said.
The head of the US military's Africa Command, Army General Carter Ham, said most of the American forces have landed in Uganda and are starting to co-ordinate the efforts of four central African countries as they comb a huge expanse of jungle for Joseph Kony, the messianic founder of the Lord's Resistance Army.
"This is not like another organisation where if you take the top guy out somebody else can step in" ... US General Carter Ham.Credit: Getty Images
Kony and his rebels are accused of killing, maiming, kidnapping and raping thousands of civilians in Uganda, the Central African Republic, Congo and South Sudan.
Obama administration officials have been vague about how long US forces will remain in central Africa. In congressional testimony recently, a senior defence official said that the mission would last for a matter of ''months'' but that it would be reviewed over time.
General Ham said the plan is to keep troops in the region until Kony is killed or brought to justice.
''That's the mission,'' General Ham said in an interview during a visit to Washington last week.
The Lord's Resistance Army has been fighting the Ugandan government and attacking civilians for nearly 25 years, but General Ham predicted that the group ''will probably wither'' if Kony is apprehended.
''This is not like another organisation where if you take the top guy out somebody else can step in,'' General Ham said. ''It really is about him personally.''
Kony is a self-proclaimed prophet whose group emerged from northern Uganda in the late 1980s. The Lord's Resistance Army is known for its brutality and for conscripting children as soldiers and sex slaves.
The International Criminal Court indicted Kony and four other commanders in 2005 on war crimes charges. Kony and his core group of about 250 fighters have dodged their pursuers by retreating to jungle hideouts across central Africa.
A smaller group of US military advisers assisted a previous Ugandan-led offensive against the Lord's Resistance Army in late 2008 and early 2009. That operation backfired as Kony's group escaped and massacred hundreds of civilians.
Congress and human rights groups have pressed the White House to try again, prompting Mr Obama last month to send about 100 Special Operations Forces troops to the region.
It is the largest deployment of US forces to an African conflict zone since marines landed in Liberia in 2003.
The Washington Post