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Army blames "criminal" LRA splinter for Gulu attack

A weekend attack in the northwestern district of Gulu, in which up to five people were killed and 12 others injured, was carried out by a northern Uganda-based "criminal gang", and was not part of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgent group's operations, as reported in the Ugandan media, according to an army spokesman. The government-owned New Vision newspaper reported on Monday that a group of four LRA rebels shot and killed five mourners at a funeral in an early Sunday morning raid at Lagot, Bungatira, in Gulu District. It quoted eyewitnesses as saying that the suspected rebels shot and injured 12 civilians and abducted four others in the early morning raid. Maj Shaban Bantariza Shaban, the Uganda People's Defence Forces' director of information and public relations, told IRIN on Monday that the group that attacked the mourners had been part of LRA before the rebel group moved its bases into Sudan. However, they had, for a number of years, been prevented from joining the rest of the LRA by the high concentration of Ugandan troops along the common border areas, and were now operating as criminal gangs which attacked villages and looted property, he said. "They are not a big group, as such. They are not connected to one another. They have no communication equipment and so can only operate in groups of threes or fours. That's all they can do. They are a security nuisance," Bantariza said. "They are not opposed in principle to the LRA, but military surveillance along the border has prevented them from joining the LRA in Sudan," he added. Khelil Magala, Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) 4th Division spokesman, and the chairman of the local council, only identified as Gibson, confirmed the attack, saying that the attackers - who had grabbed property from the mourners before retreating into the bush - belonged to a splinter group headed by Kwoyelo, a notorious ex-LRA commander operating in Kilak County, Gulu District. The Gulu attacks followed reports that the Ugandan army had killed up to 80 LRA rebels in an ambush laid about 10 km inside Sudan. Bantariza told IRIN that 80 rebels killed were among 300 who had attacked the Agoro market area in the neighbouring district of Kitgum a week earlier, before escaping into southern Sudan. A reported 300 LRA rebels on 23 February attacked a [paramilitary] Local Defence Unit detachment in Agoro, Lamwo County, Kitgum District, and kidnapped around 100 people - mostly men between 15 and 25 years of age. Four people, two civilians and two soldiers, were reportedly killed in the attack. Bantariza said reports that the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, had been involved in the Agoro market attack were true, and claimed Kony's presence indicated that the rebel group was now in desperate need of reinforcements. "The whole of last year they were not able to make any incursions into the north, and have become desperate. The weekend incident was a kind of suicide attack," he told IRIN last week. He said the UPDF had not entered Sudan to wage war with the Khartoum government but with the purpose of pursuing the rebels who had fled into its territory, according to news agency reports. Uganda's pursuit of the LRA rebels into Sudan was in accordance with the UN Charter, Article 51, which allows countries to pursue "their enemies" into another's territory up to a distance of 50 km from the border, Bantariza told IRIN on Monday. The 80 were killed within 16 km of the border, and with the cooperation from the Sudanese government, he said. "We are working closely with the Sudan government. We're not doing anything behind their back. They have no problem with it," he added. Bantariza said the army unit pursuing rebels into Sudan was part of a battalion permanently based in Gulu, contrary to press reports that Uganda had sent extra troops to northern Uganda, along the border with Sudan. "Those were remarks made by irresponsible MPs [Members of Parliament]," he added. The LRA, led by Joseph Kony, has fought President Museveni's secular government since 1988, from bases in southern Sudan, ostensibly to establish a rule based on the Biblical Ten Commandments. The US in December 2001 included the group - as well as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) operating in western and southwestern Uganda - on its "Terrorist Exclusion List" under the US Patriot Act. LRA operations have include the killing and abduction of civilians, particularly children, to fight in its ranks, or to act as sex slaves and porters for looted goods, in a manner that humanitarian officials have described as a war against the civilian population and not the Kampala government.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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