03 11 13 AFP: DR Congo army launches assault on last rebel holdouts

"We
are pounding Mbuzi," one of three mountains in eastern DR Congo where the
rebels are hiding, General Lucien Bahuma told AFP by telephone. "After the
artillery we will send in the troops."

 

Some 200
die-hard fighters of the M23 rebel group have been holed up in the mountainous
region bordering Uganda
since their base in the town of Bunagana
was seized on Wednesday.

 

"They
are claiming back the hills. There is shooting in the mountains of Ntamugena,
Mbuzi and Runyonyi. The rebels are fleeing," a DR Congo captain told AFP,
speaking anonymously.

 

The sound
of heavy artillery could be heard from Kiwanja, a town around 20 kilometres (12 miles) away.

 

The M23
movement was founded by ethnic Tutsi former rebels who were incorporated into
the Congolese army under a 2009 peace deal but then mutinied in April 2012,
claiming that the pact had never been fully implemented.

 

At their
strongest in November last year, M23 marched into Goma, a mining hub and city
of one million people, and took control for 10 days, before regional leaders
persuaded them into fresh peace talks.

 

But the
stop-start talks fell apart last month when Kinshasa refused amnesty for about
80 rebel leaders and the DR Congo army — backed by a special United Nations
force — went on the attack in a bid to end the rebellion once and for all.