COIN case: LRA Lords Resistance Army

[davidbfpo]

The small US mission has attracted a WaPo report, with a lurid headline and these two opening passages:

As their mission stretches into a fifth year, however, U.S. troops have turned to some unsavory partners to help find Kony’s trail. Working from a new bush camp in the Central African Republic, U.S. forces have begun working closely with Muslim rebels — known as Seleka — who toppled the central government two years ago and triggered a still-raging sectarian war with a campaign of mass rapes and executions. The Pentagon had not previously disclosed that it is cooperating with Seleka and obtaining intelligence from the rebels. The arrangement has made some U.S. troops uncomfortable.

As previous posts from January 2015 show this cooperation is hardly new.

Link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...19_story.html?

[davidbfpo]

A short article, no doubt part of the publisher's advertising; caveat aside maybe it helps to explain:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...memoir-extract

[davidbfpo]

Perhaps one day more will be said:

A senior commander with the rebel group Lord's Resistance Army has defected to villagers in Central African Republic, the U.S. Africa Command said Friday. The rebel commander defected near the community of Pangbayanga, and is being debriefed in the country by the African Union Regional Task Force and U.S. forces, the command said. No further details were given.

Link:http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:...7bd89be858d2cf

[davidbfpo]

The pressure groups have told at least this Jo'burg-based journalist the LRA are active once more:

Rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have dramatically escalated their attacks, abducting more than 200 people - including 54 children - in the first two months of this year. The LRA carried out twice as many raids in January and February alone as during the whole of 2015, according to "LRA Crisis Tracker".....The LRA had been reduced to as few as 120 fighters and 100 accompanying women and children.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...f-attacks.html

[davidbfpo]

Is this a pointer to an exit coming? The article opens with:

Africa Command’s five-year search for the elusive warlord Joseph Kony continues, but the mission in the remote jungles of central Africa has become an albatross for the general in charge of the campaign......An expensive albatross.

Link:http://www.stripes.com/news/africom-...-kony-1.405757

[davidbfpo]

A long review by Professor Stephen Chan, an expert on Africa, of a book 'When the Walking Defeats You' by Ledio Cakaj, as he explains:

It’s narrated by a young Ugandan student, pseudonym “George”, who was expelled from school and sent by his own family to join and fight with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). He became a bodyguard to the group’s infamous leader, Joseph Kony, who admired him for his learning.

...that as a very young soldier in Uganda, he also had his reasons and reflections, fears and hopes, pride and premonitions.

(Ends with) George’s telling is very much a narration of an encounter, not a psychological or intellectual inquiry. But it isn’t cheap or glib, and the book as a whole raises profund questions. Perhaps there are reasons why children fight – and perhaps even why madmen fight.

Link:https://theconversation.com/in-one-of-2016s-best-books-a-former-lords-resistance-army-child-soldier-reveals-the-reason-behind-the-mayhem-70027?