Ugandan troops play jungle cat and mouse with Kony

(Reuters) – A Ugandan “hunting squad” pushes through the thick jungle of central Africa in search of

the fugitive warlord Joseph Kony.

It is tough terrain that favors the hunted.

At times the Ugandan soldiers cover

as little as three kilometers a day, laboring through hanging vines and dense foliage that cut visibility to a few meters and

wading chest-deep through crocodile-infested rivers.

The 58-man special operations group, codenamed 77-kilo, is at the

forefront of a reinvigorated international drive to close the net on the sadistic Kony and the remnants of his depleted

Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group.

The deployment of some 100 U.S. military advisers to the region late last

year to support the hunt raised hopes Kony’s decades-long campaign, notorious for the rebels’ practices of hacking off

limbs and abducting children, was doomed.

However, in the steamy forests straddling the borders of Central African

Republic (CAR), South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo, the LRA’s favored hideouts since it fled its native Uganda, Kony

remains a master of the hostile environment.

“We’re hungry to hunt these guys down and take them back home, but it’s

a tough task,” said Private James Mukundane, a sturdy warrior with a broad smile.

Ugandan commanders believe Kony and

his two most senior lieutenants, who all face war crimes charges, are in a band of territory several hundred kilometers wide,

feeding on wild yams and stolen cattle and drinking from rivers.

Uganda’s military estimates the LRA has been reduced

to no more than 200 fighters in CAR. Pockets of LRA fighters also remain in Congo. Moving in small groups and avoiding the

use of satellite phones and radios, they are hard to intercept.

REBEL HIDEOUT

Less than an hour into 77-Kilo’s

patrol, the troops, sweat pouring down their brows, encounter nomadic cattle herders. They claim they are from the north of

the country but more likely are from Sudan’s Darfur region or neighboring Chad.

Under gentle questioning, they deny

any contact with the LRA since the middle of 2011.

It is an unlikely story. Air surveillance images used to help

coordinate the search for enemy combatants indicate suspected rebel movements in the area in recent weeks.

Slowly, an

Arabic-speaking trooper coaxes the hardest intelligence the squad has received in weeks from Harun Issa, who crouches down

and begins sketching a map in the dirt.

“Five days ago your forces were just here, southeast of where we are now,”

Issa said, jabbing his cane into the dust to mark a point along the river Chinko.

“The distance between your men and

them, you could walk in about 20 minutes,” he said. The rebels had raided his family’s herd twice in the last few days, once

in a group of 80 fighters and abducted youngsters.

The rebels’ hideout was in a large wooded hollow on the eastern

bank of the Chinko, said Issa, whose children had earlier stumbled upon the camp while collecting water.

“Today is a

step forward,” said the squad’s commander, Lieutenant Harold Olet.

It is also a morale booster for Olet’s men. Their

last contact with the rebels was a brief firefight with two LRA reconnaissance fighters in January. Before that, they had had

no contact since September.

Now, in exchange for sugar and medicine, Issa will lead the hunting squad to the rebel

group’s last known position. Three other hunting squads have been drafted in to support the

raid.

REVENGE

Kony, a self-styled mystic leader who at one time wanted to rule Uganda according to the biblical

Ten Commandments, fled northern Uganda in 2005, roaming first the lawless expanses of South Sudan, then the isolated

northeastern tip of Congo.

In December 2008, Uganda launched Operation Lightning Thunder, dispersing the rebels and

pushing them north into CAR. More than three years later, Uganda’s force commander Colonel Joesph Balikudembe said the

LRA’s battle was now to survive.

“We have weakened the LRA in terms of numbers, in terms of weaponry and in terms of

the will to fight,” said Balikudembe, speaking at the force’s main operating base in Nzara, South Sudan.

But regional

security forces have failed to land a knockout blow on Kony, who was thrust into the spotlight this year when a video

highlighting the mutilations, rapes and murders carried out by his drugged, vicious fighters went viral on the

internet.

There are hopes the U.S. forces may prove the game-changer, swinging the cat-and-mouse hunt in Uganda’s

favor, though Washington’s exact role remains vague.

U.S. President Barack Obama, outlining the troops’ mission,

made clear they would be trainers and advisers to the hunters but would not engage in combat except in

self-defense.

Several clean-cut U.S. soldiers were spotted in Nzara and Djema, the Ugandan army’s forward operating

base about 200 km inside CAR, but they deflected questions with broad smiles.

Balikudembe said they were helping with

logistics and intelligence. “We are using our American advisers to see if they can make any interceptions,” he

said.

Close to the river Chinko, Private Jimmy Odong prepared for 77-kilo’s advance on the suspected rebel

camp.

The LRA kidnapped Odong and his five brothers in 1994. Then 13, his first order was to bludgeon to death his

younger brother who could not keep up with the abducted group.

Killing and looting became routine, his teenage

conscience numbed to the atrocities he was committing. Eight years after he escaped, Odong is now one of the hunting squad’s

“pseudo men”.

Clad in tatty fatigues and a beaded necklace, his hair in dreadlocks, Odong’s role is to infiltrate

rebel outposts, relaying intelligence to the squad in preparation for attack.

“I know their patterns of movement, I

know their tactics, I can talk openly with them,” Odong said.

The stakes are high. One false move, one incorrect

answer and his cover is blown. But Odong’s desire to avenge his lost childhood drives him on.

“I hope we get Kony,

that the army hands him over to the Hague and he answers the charges against him.”

(Editing by David Clarke and Tim

Pearce)