UN Attack Helicopters Kill 7 Rebels In Congo

United Nations attack helicopters have fired rockets at Congolese rebels, killing seven of them. Rwandan rebels in the northwestern part of Congo tried to take over a military camp, after which the Congolese army requested assistance.

Defenceweb reports that most of the government soldiers at the base in Lwibo had left to collect their pay when Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebels and local Mai Mai militia fighters attacked the base. Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, military spokesman for Congo's UN peacekeeping mission, MONUC, said:

The (Congolese army) asked us for aerial assistance. Our attack helicopters fired five rockets, killing seven elements.

The Congolese army said eight rebel fighters had been killed in the combined air strike and army counterattack. One army officer died of wounds later. Government forces are fighting the Rwandan Hutu FDLR in the North and South Kivu provinces in the northeastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which border Uganda and Rwanda. A peace deal with militia groups broke down recently in the already volatile region. According to the Congo Planet website, the UN authorized 3,000 additional troops for the peacekeeping force which comprises personnel from, among others, Bangladesh, Belgium, Egypt, Jordan, Tanzania and Uruguay. MONUC's official website says countries from all over the world, including Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, China, Nepal, Serbia, South Africa, and Tunisia have contributed to the more than 18,000-strong UN contingent in DRC.