U.S. Support Aids Hunt for Central African Rebel Group

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

STUTTGART, Germany, June 22, 2012 – The U.S. military is just one part of a larger, multinational effort to help four African partner nations bring rebel leader Joseph Kony and senior members of his brutal Lord’s Resistance Army to justice, said Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, the commander of U.S. Africa Command.

Kony and his followers, many of them reported to be kidnapped children, have for years conducted a reign of terror marked by thousands of deaths, abductions, maiming and rape across several nations in central Africa. But they gained worldwide notoriety earlier this year when a YouTube video about Kony went viral.

The United States’ focus on this problem, however, is not new, Africom officials explained.

Since the 1990s, the United States has provided Uganda humanitarian and security assistance and supported reconciliation efforts in support of Uganda’s efforts to curtail the LRA’s brutalities against civilian populations.

President Barack Obama signed the Lord’s Resistance Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act into law in May 2010, affirming U.S. commitment to partners in the region to put an end to LRA atrocities. Since then, the United States has pursued a comprehensive, multi-faceted strategy to help the governments and people of the region in their efforts to end the threat posed by the rebel group.

Last fall, the president increased this effort by ordering 100 special operations forces to the region, where they operate from a joint operations center in Uganda and four remote outposts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

Ham emphasized that the U.S. military has no direct operational role. Instead of conducting the manhunt themselves, U.S. troops are providing information- and intelligence-sharing, logistics, communications and other enabling capabilities for host-nation troops pursuing Kony in Uganda, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and the Republic of the Congo.

“Our effort … is very much a supporting role to try to encourage the militaries of the four African countries that are involved, who lead their effort,” he said.

This approach, Ham explained, is consistent with Africom’s overall strategy and priorities. “The two overarching principles for us here at U.S. Africa Command are, one, simply, a safe, stable, secure Africa is in the best interest of not only the African countries, but of the United States as well,” he said. “And certainly the … effort to bring Kony to justice fits into that ... priority.”

The approach also reinforces one of Africom’s underlying principles, espoused by Obama during his visit to Ghana in 2009, in that, “in the long run, Africans are best suited to address African security problems,” the general said.

Ham recognized the challenges the Africans face in finding Kony and the LRA, who operate across a large ungoverned area and conceal their movements and limit their communications.

“It’s a large geographic area, heavily forested, very remote, [with a] lack of infrastructure, very few roads and bridges. It’s very rough terrain, and so it doesn’t lend itself to an easy solution,” he said.

Complicating the effort, he said, is the fact that the LRA’s members, estimated at about 200 in number, never congregate and operate in “very, very small groups.”

Ham reported signs of progress regarding the collective military efforts against the LRA.

“There are indications that the organization is increasingly in a survivalist mode; that they are moving frequently, that they are focused more on self-preservation than they are on extending their influence… into the small towns and villages across the region,” he said.

Ham expressed concern, however, that a desperate LRA might attempt a spectacular attack to weaken the collective will of the Africans confronting them.

“It’s a very real concern, and one we have to watch carefully,” he said.

However, Ham said he has seen increased commitment and cooperation in recent months between the Africans and expressed confidence that they ultimately will succeed in capturing Kony.

“I’m confident in the abilities of the four African countries: the level of commitment that I’ve seen from their senior officials, mostly from heads of state, certainly from ministers of interior and defense and chief of staff; the level of commitment I see from the African Union; the level of commitment from my president and from our government,” he said. “I am confident this mission will be successful.”

Ham offered a reminder about why that success matters for the United States.

“Why does America care about this part of Africa?” he said. “Because we have a great interest in regional stability and regional security. We feel…, as Americans, that our security is enhanced when other parts of the world are stable and secure as well.”

U.S. Supports Pushback Against Lord’s Resistance Army

By Karen Parrish

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2012 – The United States is part of a successful effort to help counter the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa, but a four-pillared approach to neutralizing the terrorist group must continue, senior defense, diplomatic and aid officials told senators here yesterday.

That approach, officials explained, includes increasing protection for civilians in LRA-affected areas, apprehending and removing Joseph Kony and other LRA leaders, disarming, demobilizing and reintegrating remaining LRA fighters, and sustaining humanitarian relief to affected areas.

Amanda J. Dory, deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for African affairs, joined Donald Yamamoto, principal deputy assistant Secretary of State for African affairs, and Earl Gast, U.S. Agency for International Development assistant administrator for Africa, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s African Affairs Subcommittee yesterday.

The LRA is composed mostly of kidnapped children forced to conduct Kony’s terrorist tactics over the past 20 years, administration officials have said. Tens of thousands of people have been murdered and as many as 1.8 million have been displaced by the LRA, they said.

President Barack Obama announced April 23 that a U.S. military advise-and-assist mission to Central Africa, begun in October, will remain in place with periodic review.

“Our advisers will continue their efforts to bring this madman to justice and to save lives,” the president said in announcing the mission’s extension.

The 100-member U.S. team of trainers is working to help nations affected by the LRA to “help realize a future where no African child is stolen from their family and no girl is raped and no boy is turned into a child soldier,” Obama said.

Dory described U.S. contributions to the effort, which include training local forces and assisting in intelligence and logistics coordination.

“The militaries of Uganda, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in collaboration with the African Union, continue to pursue the LRA and seek to protect local populations,” she said. “They are leading this effort.”

U.S. advisors in Uganda synchronize and oversee the department’s counter-LRA efforts and coordinate with Ugandan forces, she said, while other U.S. service members work in field locations with forces from Uganda, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

“U.S. advisors have helped to set up operations fusion centers to enable daily coordination, information sharing and tactical coordination,” she said. “[They] are also integrating local civilian leaders into the work of the partner forces to improve the effectiveness of the civil-military relations.”

Yamamoto said the State Department’s role in the counter-LRA mission largely involves multinational coordination.

“We are coordinating closely with the United Nations peacekeeping missions in the region, especially to promote civilian protection,” he said. “We have encouraged the U.N. to scale up its efforts when possible. We are also working very closely with the African Union to increase its efforts to address the LRA.”

Gast said USAID has worked in Africa since the late 1980s to help communities build security, to reintegrate children formerly abducted by the LRA, and to strengthen economic development in affected areas.

“As the conflict first began to exact severe economic losses, cause mass displacement and weaken governance in Northern Uganda, USAID focused on providing lifesaving assistance to those affected by the conflict,” Gast said. “When the LRA was finally driven out of Northern Uganda, our programs shifted from relief to recovery and then to longer-term development, which is taking place now.”

Dory noted the LRA operates in a remote and rugged zone that includes parts of several countries. U.S. forces have effectively only been in the area since December and January, she said, but they have seen results from their efforts.

“We believe the U.S. military advisors have established a good foundation and made initial progress, especially considering the complexity of the operating environment, the number of partners involved and the remoteness of the operational areas,” Dory said. “We will continue to monitor the situation closely with our interagency partners to ensure our support is having the intended impact.”

Obama Announces Strategy to Counter Atrocities

By Karen Parrish

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 23, 2012 – President Barack Obama today announced a strategy to strengthen the U.S. government’s ability to foresee, prevent, and respond to genocide and mass atrocities, and extended U.S. troops’ efforts to do just that in Central Africa.

During a visit to the Holocaust Memorial Museum here, Obama said preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility for the United States.

“That does not mean that we intervene militarily every time there's an injustice in the world,” the president said. “We cannot and should not. It does mean we possess many tools, diplomatic and political and economic and financial and intelligence and law enforcement, and our moral suasion.”

Obama’s strategy calls for the Defense Department to develop doctrine and increase training and planning efforts emphasizing mass atrocity prevention and response.

Obama announced the creation of the Atrocities Prevention Board, which will include Defense Department representatives as well as those from the departments of State, Treasury, Justice, and Homeland Security; the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the office of the director of National Intelligence, the CIA, and the office of the vice president, according to White House officials.

The board will help identify and address atrocity threats, and will oversee institutional changes to make the U.S. government “more nimble and effective” is response to such threats, administration officials said.

The strategy also increases diplomatic and intelligence efforts to identify and respond to atrocities, they said.

Obama said the United States over the past three years has helped to counter mass atrocities in Libya, South Sudan and Cote d'Ivoire.

The military mission to help counter the Lord’s Resistance Army, a terrorist group in central Africa led by Joseph Kony, demonstrated how U.S. forces can support national and international efforts to quell atrocities, Obama said.

About a hundred U.S. military advisors, mostly from the Army’s Special Forces, have been working since October with the militaries of Uganda, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan to capture or kill Kony and other LRA commanders under an Obama executive order.

When he announced that mission, the president directed the National Security Council to review its progress after 150 days.

Today, Obama said, “I can announce that our advisers will continue their efforts to bring this madman to justice and to save lives. It is part of our regional strategy … to end the scourge that is the LRA and help realize a future where no African child is stolen from their family and no girl is raped and no boy is turned into a child soldier.”

The LRA is composed mostly of kidnapped children forced to execute Kony’s terrorist tactics over the past 20 years, administration officials have said. Tens of thousands of people have been murdered and as many as 1.8 million have been displaced by the LRA, they said.

Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. John Kirby told reporters today the U.S. advisors in central Africa have had “a significant impact … improving the capabilities of indigenous forces there to put pressure on the LRA.”

The advisors’ role, Kirby emphasized, is training and assistance, not combat. He added that the U.S. assistance is helping.

“We’ve seen indications that [Kony] and his followers are less active and less effective,” he said.

Commander: Countering Extremists Tops Africom’s Priorities

By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Feb. 29, 2012 – In its mission to strengthen the defense capabilities of African states, the U.S. Africa Command considers countering extremist organizations its top job, Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, Africom commander, said today.

“In line with the new defense strategic guidance, we’ve prioritized our efforts, focusing on the greatest threats to America, Americans and American interests,” Ham told the House Armed Services Committee. “Countering threats posed by al-Qaida affiliates in east and northwest Africa remains my No. 1 priority.”

Helping Africom partners responsibly address their own security challenges is an integral part of the command’s activities, as are strengthening regional and peacekeeping capabilities and maritime security, the general said.

“Our engagements are designed to be innovative, low-cost and have a small footprint,” Ham told the panel. “In Africa, a small investment truly can go a long way.”

Over the past year, significant changes have swept the African continent, he said.

“The broad wave of democratic movements that began in Tunisia has spread faster and more broadly than many forecasted,” Ham said. “And the Republic of South Sudan is the world’s newest nation,” gaining its independence last July.

In Nigeria, an Islamist extremist organization called Boko Haram conducts violent attacks and demonstrates a growing threat to western interests, the general said. And in the Horn of Africa on Feb. 9, he noted, al-Qaida and its Somalia-based terrorist cell al-Shabaab publicly formalized their long-standing merger.

Strong relationships have long been suspected among al-Qaida, al-Shebab and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula across the Gulf of Aden, operating in the country of Yemen, Ham said.

“Some have postulated that the timing of the public announcement may [indicate] that al-Shebab is under duress,” Ham said. “I believe they are very much under duress by the African Union mission in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, which have joined in the effort to defeat al-Shebab and clear areas of Somalia from al-Shebab control.”

The announcement is not quite a last gasp, the general added, “but I would say [it is] an effort by al-Shebab to gain some international support.”

While each group by itself is certainly dangerous, he added, “what concerns me more is at least the … intent expressed by the leaders of those organizations to more closely collaborate and synchronize their efforts.” If they are able to coordinate efforts, share funding and training and exchange weapons, the Africom commander said, “I think that presents a real challenge for us.”

In October, President Barack Obama authorized the deployment to central Africa of 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces whose mission was to help regional forces fight the notorious Lord's Resistance Army and its leader, Joseph Kony.

Today, with the approval of the Ugandan government, about 100 service members and civilians that include two combat-equipped teams and headquarters, communications and logistics personnel, provide information, advice and assistance to select partner nation forces and act as advisers to partner forces that seek to remove Kony and other senior LRA leadership from the battlefield.

“The Lord’s Resistance Army is an organization that creates through violence a tremendous amount of instability in a four-country region of east and central Africa,” Ham told the House members. “Initially beginning in Uganda but now extending their efforts into South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, they’ve displaced many thousands of African citizens and brought terror and fear to families across the region.”

Ham said the four African nations, with U.S. forces in a facilitating role, are coming together in an increasingly collaborative approach to counter the LRA.

“To date, what we have found is that presence of the U.S. mostly special forces advisors that are working with the armed forces of those four nations are having a very positive effect,” the general said.

Though he is optimistic, he added, the effort is “not yet to the point where we see the end in sight.”

Security in Africa, he said, continues to be influenced by external actors, by rapid economic developments, population growth and the overall size and diversity of the continent itself.

Ham said that as he travels across Africa, he’s been encouraged by the optimism of African leaders in confronting the challenges and embracing the opportunities ahead.

Because he believes Africans are best able to address African security challenges, and because a safe, secure and stable Africa is in the U.S. national interest, the general added, “we at U.S. Africa Command will continue to strive to be the security partner of choice in Africa.”

U.S., African Forces Mitigate Terror Group’s Impact

By Lisa Daniel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2012 – U.S. special operations forces are helping four Central African nations reduce the size and lethality of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a group that has terrorized the region for 25 years, U.S. officials said today.

Navy Rear Adm. Brian L. Losey, commander of Special Operations Command Africa, said in a conference call with reporters that the LRA is down to about 200 core fighters. Karly Wycoff, deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, also participated in the call.

While still under the direction of its leader, Joseph Kony, the admiral said, the group is kept on the run in the remote, shared border region of South Sudan, Uganda, Central Africa Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- an area about the size of California.

President Barack Obama ordered about 100 special operations forces to deploy to Central Africa in October to train and augment the capabilities of the African militaries in the region.

The U.S. effort to help the four-nation partnership counter the LRA is a comprehensive, multi-faceted strategy that has included training, funding, airlift, logistics, communications and intelligence support -- specifically, fusing intelligence and support to operations, Losey and Wycoff said.

“With our support, these four military forces continue to make progress in reducing the LRA’s numbers and keep them from regrouping,” Wycoff said.

U.S. forces also are working closely with the State Department, the United Nations, the African Union and nongovernmental organizations to provide humanitarian relief in the region, Wycoff said.

“The military is only one part of a broader strategy,” Wycoff said. A large part of the strategy is to entice LRA members to defect and safely return home, with the help of government and aid organizations, he said, and to publicize those defections.

“One of the sad realities of this situation is that many of the perpetrators of these [LRA] atrocities were victims themselves, abducted in their childhood and forced to fight,” he said.

Wycoff likened Kony and his followers to a cult that has kidnapped and murdered civilians for two decades, causing an estimated 455,000 people to be displaced or to live as refugees. The LRA is not known to be involved in any money-making criminal enterprise, he said, but survives off foraging and pillaging of villages.

The LRA is implicated in 278 attacks and at least 300 abductions last year, which decreased at the end of the year, they said.

“Now they are only a small percentage of their former strength,” Losey said. But the fact that the LRA is operating at all, even at reduced strength, is terrifying to people in the region, he added.

Losey said the removal of Kony is one of the chief objectives in a broader mission to enable the four partner nations to be fully capable to counter the LRA. Though there is no timeline for the U.S. mission, he added, it also is not open-ended.

“We want to make very clear that we are supporting, and not leading, this effort,” he said.

The fact that the four African nations came together for the effort to defeat the LRA is an achievement, Losey said.

“This operation is at its core what U.S. Africa Command is all about,” he said. “In the long run, it is the Africans who are best suited to address” their regional security challenges.

Official: Troops in Central Africa for Months, Not Years

By Lisa Daniel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25, 2011 – About a hundred U.S. troops being deployed to Central Africa will be there for months -- not years -- and only until the national armies of the region are capable of dismantling the terrorist group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army, a senior Pentagon official told Congress members today.

“We’ve made very clear that this is not an open-ended commitment,” Alexander Vershbow, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “We agreed there would be review after several months to know whether our advisors are making significant progress.”

The U.S. military and the State Department are working together on a four-point plan to help rid Central Africa of the LRA, headed by Joseph Kony, who has been indicted for international war crimes, Vershbow said. He appeared before the committee alongside Donald Yamamoto, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, to explain the operation President Barack Obama announced Oct. 14.

The U.S. troops -- mostly Army Special Forces -- will work with the militaries of Uganda, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan to capture or kill Kony and other LRA commanders, Vershbow said.

The State Department will oversee the other three parts of the plan: to protect civilians, disarm and dismantle the LRA, and provide humanitarian relief to areas affected by the guerrilla militia, Vershbow and Yamamoto said. The LRA, they said, is composed mostly of kidnapped children forced to execute Kony’s terrorist tactics over the past 20 years. Tens of thousands of people have been murdered and as many as 1.8 million have been displaced by the LRA, which has attacked at least 240 times this year, Yamamoto added.

Kony was placed on a specially designated international terrorist list in 2008, but has no known ties to other groups such as al-Qaida or al Shabab, Yamamoto said. Kony began the LRA -- a terrorist group with no religious ties -- in Uganda, but moved out of the country in 2006 to work in small groups in surrounding areas, he said.

U.S. Africa Command has provided training and equipment to central African militaries, and those militaries have been successful against the LRA, which is down to about 200 core fighters and about 600 supporters, Yamamoto said. About 12,000 LRA fighters, he said, have left the group and been reintegrated into their home environments.

African militaries have developed capacities and work together in difficult jungle terrain, but need military assistance in merging intelligence with operations planning, Vershbow said.

With the consent of all the central African governments, some U.S. troops already have moved into the affected area, Vershbow said. Most will stay in Uganda, but some will forward deploy with African troops, he added.

Under Obama’s order, U.S. troops are limited to an advisory and assistance role, but will be armed and equipped for their own defense, Vershbow said.

“We’ve already seen a lot of progress by the Ugandans and other militaries in reducing the LRA’s numbers,” he said. “We think we’re building on a fairly strong foundation here. But those regional forces have been hindered by their inability to gather intelligence and turn into operational action.”

The cost and duration of the deployment is unclear, Vershbow said, but it likely will cost tens of millions of dollars and last several months.

“We will review it in a few months to ensure it is having success on the ground,” he said. “We define success, first and foremost, as to whether Kony and the other commanders are captured, the number of defections, and the ability of the African armies to succeed.”

The action is similar to those the U.S. military undertook in training and equipping Georgian and Bosnian militaries in recent years, Vershbow said.

“What we’re doing in this specific case is a subset of broader efforts we’re making throughout Africa to promote the professionalization of those militaries and to solve their own problems,” Vershbow said.

“This will give greater military cooperation among the four key states involved … so we don’t have to intervene in the future,” he added.