The building belonged to the town of Obo’s doctor until he was murdered last year by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) while transporting medicines by road. Now it serves as an operational centre in one of America’s latest military ventures in Africa.
The mission’s goal is clear.
“(The) focus is the removal of Joseph Kony and senior Lord’s Resistance Army leadership from the battlefield,” said Captain Ken Wright, a navy SEAL in command of the roughly 100-strong force which deployed in October.
Kony has evaded the region’s militaries for nearly three decades, kidnapping tens of thousands of children to fill his militia’s ranks and serve as sex slaves as he moves through the bush. Thousands more have died in the wake of his brutal army.
The deployment of elite American forces to help track Kony and his senior commanders in the dense equatorial jungle across a region that spans several countries has raised hopes the sadistic warlord’s days are numbered.
The troops are armed but do not patrol the surrounding forests and are allowed to engage the LRA only in self-defence.
Instead, their focus is on improving intelligence on LRA positions gathered both electronically and from tip-offs.
By meshing stories from hunters and nomadic cattle herders of encounters with the rebels together with sophisticated surveillance imagery, allied forces chart suspected rebel activity and coordinate the regional armies’ pursuit of Kony.
“You look at patterns to see where LRA might be moving, historic areas where they might operate, so we can predict where they’re going and try and head them off and most effectively use the forces on the ground,” Captain Gregory, a 29-year-old Texan hidden behind sunglasses and a wide brimmed hat told Reuters.
For many of the U.S. troops who have recently served in Afghanistan and Iraq, the humid jungles of central Africa are unfamiliar territory.
