African Union to Hunt Down Kony

Ugandan-based Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony is the subject of a purported manhunt led by the United States. Obama has dispatched at least 100 troops to East and Central Africa., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

African Union to hunt down Kony

Force of 5,000 targets warlord

Reuters
March 24, 2012

The African Union will launch a 5,000-strong military force on Saturday in Juba, Southern Sudan, to hunt down fugitive warlord Joseph Kony, whose global profile shot up recently thanks to a celebritybacked Internet campaign to bring him to justice.

The force, which Uganda said it would lead last week and the AU authorized on Friday, brings together soldiers from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic, as well as Uganda.

It will be based in the South Sudan city of Yambio, close to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, the AU's Special Envoy for the (Kony's) Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) Francisco Madeira told reporters in Entebbe, after a meeting that brought together AU, United Nations and Ugandan officials.

Madeira said the force would be deployed in jungle areas where Kony and his fighters are known to be at work.

Asked how long the force would be operating, Madeira said: "When we capture Kony or he hands himself in or we neutralize him in some way, that will be the end. That's the time frame."

Some 100 U.S. military advisers deployed to Uganda were already helping to capture Kony, but the task force needed more international support, Uganda's defence minister said last week.

Kony, accused of terrorizing northern Uganda for two decades, is wanted by the International Criminal court for war crimes. He is accused of abducting children to use as fighters and sex slaves and is said to like hacking off limbs.

Violence has subsided since 2005 when the LRA was ejected from Uganda and now Kony is believed to command only hundreds of followers, scattered in jungle hideouts.