United States soldiers were sent in Uganda to help hunt down the leader Joseph Kony 1510113

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Defense News - Uganda
 
 
Saturday, October 15, 2011, 11:27 AM
 
United States soldiers were sent in Uganda to help hunt down the leader Joseph Kony.
President Barack Obama is sending about 100 United States soldiers to Africa to help hunt down the leaders of the notoriously violent Lord's Resistance Army in and around Uganda. U.S. military personnel advising regional forces working to target Kony and other senior leaders will not engage Kony's forces "unless necessary for self-defense," Obama said.
     

President Barack Obama is sending about 100 U.S. troops to Africa to help hunt down the leaders of the notoriously violent Lord's Resistance Army in and around Uganda. U.S. military personnel advising regional forces working to target Kony and other senior leaders will not engage Kony's forces "unless necessary for self-defense," Obama said.
Joseph Kony is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army LRA
     

"I have authorized a small number of combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield," Obama said in letter sent Friday to House Speaker John Boehner and Daniel Inouye, the president pro tempore of the Senate. Kony is the head of the Lord's Resistance Army.

Joseph Kony is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a guerrilla group that is engaged in a violent campaign to establish theocratic government based on the Ten Commandments in Uganda.

"I believe that deploying these U.S. armed forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa."

Obama noted that the group "has murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa" and "continues to commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security."