28 10 13 Reuters – Congo's army says it is heading for rebel stronghold

 A
Congolese army officer on the front line said it had taken the towns of Kiwanja
and Kalingera from the M23 rebels on Sunday, a day after wresting the strategic
town of Kibumba near the Rwandan border from the
insurgents.

Fighting
was continuing at Kiguri, 25 km (15 miles) north of Goma, the biggest city in
eastern Congo,
he said.

The
army had also opened a second front to the north of M23 positions and was moving
southward to Rutshuru, officers said.

"We
are consolidating the zones we have conquered," army spokesman Colonel Olivier
Hamuli told Reuters near the front line. "Very soon we will take Rutshuru. Those
who disarm we will accept, the others we will pursue."

M23
said in a statement on Sunday it had withdrawn its troops from Kiwanja, accusing
the army of sending in fighters in civilian clothing in a bid to draw U.N.
troops into the conflict.

M23
threatened to withdraw its delegation from stalled peace talks in the Ugandan
capital Kampala unless there was an immediate end to hostilities. It said it
would then launch a large-scale counter-offensive.

Following
two months of relative calm, fighting flared up on Friday morning after talks
broke down when M23 pressed for a full amnesty for its leaders. Each side blamed
the other for starting the fighting.

AMNESTY
DEMAND

Congolese
President Joseph Kabila said unconditional amnesty was not an option and last
week threatened a return to military action.

Congo's
army, supported by a new United Nations
intervention brigade, scored its first victories against the 20-month-old rebel
movement in late August, forcing the rebels away from
Goma.

The
U.N. brigade has a tough new mandate to eliminate armed groups in the eastern
provinces, though it has not been involved in the last three days of
fighting.

The
support of the brigade and the weakening of the rebels has fuelled belief that
Congo's army – notoriously disorganized, undisciplined and under-supplied –
could defeat M23.

Army
sources told Reuters reporters in Goma that M23 had been weakened by desertions,
with some 40 rebels taking advantage of a corridor created by the government
troops to allow then to flee rebel lines.

M23
began in early 2012 as a mutiny by soldiers demanding the government implement
the terms of a 2009 peace deal signed with a previous Rwanda-backed rebel group,
many of whose members had been integrated into the army.

U.N.
investigators and the Congolese government have accused Rwanda of supporting
M23, charges Rwanda has repeatedly denied.

Hamuli
said some M23 fighters had fled towards the Rwandan border in the face of the
army advance.

"There
are small pockets of M23 resistance in the hills near Rwanda," he said. "We
think Rwanda has to prove its good faith and oblige M23 to disarm, or disarm
them itself."

He
refused to discuss the possibility of a return to peace talks in Kampala. "We
are soldiers," he said. "We will continue to do our jobs as
soldiers."

(Reporting
by Daniel Flynn; editing by Andrew Roche)