28 10 13 Reuters: U.N. peacekeeper killed as Congo's army gains ground against rebels

The U.N.
mission in Congo (MONUSCO) said the Tanzanian peacekeeper was
killed during fighting with M23 rebels in the town of Kiwanja, north of the regional capital Goma, the largest
city in eastern Congo.

"The
soldier died while protecting the people of Kiwanja," Martin Kobler,
the head of MONUSCO, said in a statement. The previous round of clashes
between the army and rebels in late August killed at least two
Tanzanian peacekeepers.

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

President
Joseph Kabila, who last week threatened a return to military action, said an
unconditional amnesty not an option.

A
Congolese army officer on the front line said the army took Kiwanja and
Kalingera from M23 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, 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in a statement on Sunday it had withdrawn its troops from Kiwanja, accusing the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 to try to drawU.N.
troops into the conflict.

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

U.N.
brigade

Congo's army, supported by a new U.N.
intervention brigade, scored its first victories against the rebel movement,
which has been fighting for nearly two years, 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 past three days of fighting.

The
support of the brigade and the weakening of the rebels has fuelled belief that Congo's army –
notoriously disorganised, 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.

Army
spokesman 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."