Clock ticks away for Kony, says US general

Maj. Gen. Woodward says America is keen to enhance the expeditionary capability of UPDF so it deploys to battlefield and provides intelligence reconnaissance and logistics from the air.

KAMPALA

A visiting US military general has said the end of LRA and its leader Joseph Kony, is in sight as she lavished praises on UPDF for its “tenacity and professionalism” in hunting the rebels in dense jungles.

Maj. Gen. Margaret Woodward, the commander of the 17th Air Force and US Air Forces Africa, told this newspaper in an interview yesterday at the US embassy, that ongoing counter-LRA operations, buoyed by previously infrequent international consensus, are “headed in the right direction”.

Hope
“Uganda has been very tenacious and we all need to be able to support them because it is a pretty very big undertaking,” the general said. “I see that they will win [in the counter-LRA operations] in a short time and it is not going to be that long before the war ends and LRA will no longer be a problem. That is just my personal opinion.”

Maj. Gen. Woodward’s predictions come two months after Pentagon, on President Obama’s orders, began deploying about 100 US Special Forces to work with regional militaries to hunt down the LRA leader and his top commanders, from the battlefield after over two decades.

There has lately been intensified AFRICOM-led training of UPDF Air Force soldiers, particularly on Container Delivery Systems (CDS) – a system of resupply platforms capable of being inserted by parachute from aircraft to forces on the ground - to reinforce “inter-operability” between the two militaries.

In yesterday’s interview, Maj. Gen. Woodward, who oversees US Air Force activities for Africa, would not say if they are contemplating drone strikes to eliminate Uganda’s most wanted person the way it has been employed to target al-Shabaab militants in Mogadishu.

She said: “There are security constraints that keep me from talking about any specific details on capabilities for any weapons systems whether it is remotely-piloted aircraft or piloted aircraft. We realise that there are limitations in different locations that can impact on what is effective and what is not effective.”

The general, who yesterday visited the UPDF Airbase in Entebbe, however, offered assurances that Washington is doing everything it can to support the “impressive” role the Ugandan military is playing in maintaining regional security and stability. “Their tenacity and going after Kony earns our respect because it has been great. We just wish we can support that fight even more,” she said.

tbutagira@ug.nationmedia.com