NAIROBI, Kenya — The U.S. military has dropped its first set of boots into the tropical overgrowth of central Africa, one of the most inaccessible areas of the world, to help find a brutal rogue rebel group that’s known for abducting children and mutilating the faces of victims.
The armed commandos are there only to help the Ugandan army hunt down the elusive Lord’s Resistance Army and its legendary leader, Joseph Kony, officials say.
The U.S. special-operations troops have been arriving in the southeastern Central African Republic town of Obo since the beginning of the month, said a U.S. official in Kampala, Uganda, who wouldn’t say how many troops were deployed. The official was allowed to talk only if he remained anonymous.
The United States plans to deploy 100 troops in the mission to help the Ugandan and other national armies kill or apprehend Kony, but most of those American personnel will be based in Kam pala coordinating logistics and communications, the U.S. official said.
The rebel group, which originated as a northern Uganda cult and which the Sudanese government supported for years, tortures and maims villagers — or worse. Washington lists the group as a terrorist organization, and Kony has been indicted at the International Criminal Court. McClatchy Newspapers
