COIN case: LRA Lords Resistance Army

[davidbfpo]

Here is a link to a New York Times story and video about the Ugandan army's continuing effort to kill the LRA.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/wo...ica/11lra.html

Carl,

I was struck by the reported use of ex-LRA members to hunt their former comrades:

In an unorthodox strategy that could help end this seemingly pointless war, the Ugandan Army is deploying special squads of experienced killers to track down the L.R.A.’s leader...These soldiers...are former L.R.A. fighters themselves, and just about all of them were abducted as children. They recently surrendered... the decision was the Ugandans’ and that in this case, as one American officer put it, “these guys may be some of the best they got.”

The battlefield statistics seem to bear this out. In the past 18 months, American officials say, the Ugandan Army has killed or captured more than half of Mr. Kony’s men, including his finance and communications officers, as well as several other high-ranking commanders.

I don't recall seeing this before; whilst it is a standard COIN tactic having read many of the Rhodesian threads of late perhaps I was more alert when reading this.

Plus the NYT video links failed for me.