Agence France-Presse,
GOMA, DR Congo: The Democratic Republic of Congo army claimed fresh gains Thursday in heavy fighting against renegade troops, on the fourth day of a major offensive in the east of the country.
Army commanders and UN military sources confirmed that fighting raged throughout the day as troops advanced north from Mushake, a hillside village in Nord-Kivu province that fell to government forces on Wednesday.
No casualty figures were immediately available but commanders said at least 13 troops had died in the battle for Mushake, scene of some of the heaviest combat since the government launched its campaign on Monday.
Armed forces Colonel Delphin Kahimbi, second in command in Nord-Kivu, said “several dozen” rebels loyal to cashiered Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda were also killed when government troops overran Mushake.
President Joseph Kabila paid homage to the “bravery” of his troops, who are aiming to crush a rebellion that has sowed insecurity across a swathe of the DR Congo and created a humanitarian crisis.
“The government is determined to put everything in place to quickly re-establish a sustainable peace and security,” Kabila said in his annual state of the nation address to both houses of parliament.
Troops encountered strong resistance again Thursday as they advanced from Mushake towards Kirolirwe, another Nkunda stronghold around 10 kilometres (six miles) to the northeast, a UN military source said.
Fighting was intense around Kingi, a village which controls the access routes to Kirolirwe, but the rebels were eventually overcome, he said.
“The FARDC (army) have taken Kingi but it's difficult to get information because there's no telephone network in that zone,” he said.
Troops also recaptured positions they had been forced to abandon on the weekend at Kikuku and Nyanzale, Colonel Joseph Tokolonga said.
A spokesman for Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) played down the army's retaking of Mushake.
“Mushake was not a strategic area, nor a CNDP headquarters,” Rene Abandi told AFP by telephone. He added that Nkunda's troops withdrew to “save the civilian population.”
AFP journalists who visited Mushake last week, when the village remained in insurgent hands, reported that most of the civilian population had already fled.
Nord-Kivu has been rocked since late August by heavy clashes between an estimated 4,000-strong rebel force and some 20,000 army troops.
Fighting in the province has displaced hundreds of thousands of people since December last year, part of a total of 800,000 war displaced in the area.
The United States recently urged Nkunda to surrender and go into exile to avoid a bloody showdown, while Kinshasa has called on the general to end his rebellion and reintegrate his men into the army.
Nkunda says he is defending local Tutsis against Hutu rebels from neighbouring Rwanda holed up in DR Congo since a 1994 Rwandan genocide. There have also been clashes involving local militia.
