{{UN gunships targeted a base of the Ugandan Muslim rebel group ADF-Nalu in the eastern DR Congo for the first time Saturday, the UN force said.}}<\/p>\n
The Congolese army had in recent weeks taken the lead in the drive to root out ADF-Nalu, one of the oldest but lesser known armed organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
A statement from MONUSCO, the UN mission in the country, said two attack helicopters struck an ADF base northeast of Beni at 1255 GMT.<\/p>\n
Beni is a remote town in North Kivu, a restive resource-rich province that borders Rwanda and Uganda.<\/p>\n
“This operation, conducted with great precision, helps achieve a clear goal: bringing an end to ADF’s recent attacks against the civilian population,” said MONUSCO chief Martin Kobler, quoted in the statement.<\/p>\n
The FARDC regular army launched its offensive against ADF-Nalu on January 16 and announced in mid-February that it had inflicted severe losses on the rebels.<\/p>\n
Backed by a newly-formed UN intervention brigade with an unprecedented offensive mandate, the Congolese army notched up a rare military victory against the M-23 Tutsi rebel group.<\/p>\n
The ADF-Nalu was next on the list.<\/p>\n
MONUSCO has vowed to help Kinshasa rid the region of the myriad rebel groups running amok in one of the continent’s most impenetrable regions.<\/p>\n
ADF-Nalu stands for Allied Democratic Forces-National Army for the Liberation of Uganda. It is one of the oldest but lesser known rebellions based in North-Kivu and is considered the only Islamist organisation in the region.<\/p>\n
The Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group said in a report last year the rebel group had “shown remarkable resilience attributable to its geostrategic position, its successful integration into the cross-border economy and corruption in the security forces”.<\/p>\n
ADF-Nalu is led by Jamil Mukulu, a Christian convert to Islam, and has never really managed to take its fight against Yoweri Museveni’s regime to Uganda.<\/p>\n
Some observers have voiced concern that it could become a link in the growing network of radical Islamist groups in East Africa.<\/p>\n
AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{UN gunships targeted a base of the Ugandan Muslim rebel group ADF-Nalu in the eastern DR Congo for the first time Saturday, the UN force said.}} The Congolese army had in recent weeks taken the lead in the drive to root out ADF-Nalu, one of the oldest but lesser known armed organisations in the Democratic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000050655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-12852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000050655,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12852.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12852.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12852.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12852.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12852.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12852.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000050655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12852"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=12852"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=12852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}