29 08 13 Aljazeera: UN helicopters strike Congolese rebels

The fighting began just
before 8am on Wednesday in the hills of the Kibati area, about 15km north
of the provincial capital of Goma, according to both a government and a UN
spokesman.

The rebels
confirmed that they had been attacked by ground troops as well as from the
air.

"There was a big
offensive this morning. The government's army, helped by the United
Nations, attacked our positions near Goma with aircrafts, with combat
tanks and with infantry," said the president of the M23
rebel movement, Bertrand Bisimwa.

Army spokesman Lieutenant
Colonel Olivier Hamuli said the UN brigade and regular UN peacekeepers had
supported government forces with heavy artillery and attack helicopters.

"Combat is ongoing and
there has been an intense bombardment of Kibati," he told the Reuters
news agency. "It's going well. We have not advanced much but M23
is gaining no territory."

'Support role'

The UN's intervention
brigade was created as a result of intense international pressure after
the rebels briefly held Goma late last year, and UN peacekeeping forces
stood by because they were only authorised to protect civilians.

The UN Security Council
approved the creation of the intervention brigade in March, giving the
troops an expanded mandate allowing them to fight the M23 rebels.

In the weeks since the
brigade has been deployed in eastern Congo, officials have given
mixed messages about its role in the conflict, always stressing that the
brigade was fighting "alongside" or "behind"
Congolese army troops.

On Wednesday, officials
reiterated that they were playing a support role.

"The main engagement
is by the [Congolese] forces," said Siphiwe Dlamini, a spokesman for
the South African military, which contributed South African troops to the
brigade. "We are retaliating and going on the offensive."

Lieutenant Colonel Felix
Basse, the military spokesman for the UN peacekeeping mission, known as
MONUSCO, also said that UN forces were taking part in the fighting
alongside the Congolese army on Wednesday.

"MONUSCO has enlisted
all of its attack helicopters and its artillery… to push back the M23
offensive that is under way right now on the hills of Kibati," he
told journalists in the capital of Kinshasa.

The M23 fighters launched
their rebellion last year and peace talks with the Congolese government
have repeatedly stalled.