The ADF and the presence of ISIS in DR Congo: who benefits from this warlike rhetoric?
By Jean-Jacques Wondo Omanyundu
The terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) claimed, for the first time, via a message published on April 18 by its communication agency Amaq, an attack on Congolese territory. The content of the text remains vague on the circumstances and the date of the attack. The message indicates that “ISIS fighters” carried out an operation near Kamango, in the Beni region, near the border with Uganda. The statement said the attack targeted a FARDC (Congolese army) barracks based in the village of Bovata. The statement came just days after President Félix Tshisekedi’s stay in the United States where he declared a fight against Islamists in the DRC. Moreover, the claim also comes after the Congolese president held two meetings of the high council of defense, bringing together the high political, military and security authorities of the DRC in Lubumbashi and Beni, respectively on April 13 and 17, 2019. The measures taken included the question of relieving certain army officers and units operating in the Sukola2 operational sector in the Beni. How to understand this statement attributed to ISIS? What is really the ADF threat in the DRC? This is what we will try to decipher in this analysis.
The Beni region suffered deadly attacks attributed to ADF rebels
Beni territory is, since late 2013, the scene of repeated bloody attacks attributed to ADF (Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan rebel group). Military operations against this group were supposed to begin in January 2014, but had a temporary halt following the assassination of Colonel Mamadou Ndala whose units had just won a victory against the Rwandan and Ugandan backed rebel group called M23.
The map below shows Colonel Ndala’s maneuver plan for launching operations against the ADFs. At the time, the number of FDAs was estimated at about 750 combatants . General Lucien Bahuma Ambamba, former commander of the 8th military region in Goma, officially launched the operation Sukola 1 against the ADF, in January 2014, with units coming largely from the Western part of the country, those units that have never been associated with rebellions in the east of Congo. The offensive led by Bahuma’s men unstructured the strongholds of the ADF. Their leader, Jamil Mukulu, fled Beni in February 2014 and was hiding in Tanzania where he was arrested and extradited to Uganda in July 2015. He has since been imprisoned. His commanders were killed one after the other and the little of what remained of the movement was on the run.
In January 2015, UN experts said in their report that “ADF had been reduced to approximately 150-200 people overall, approximately 30 of whom were soldiers and 30-40 of whom were commanders who did not fight; the remainder were women and children. ADF soldiers lacked arms and ammunition and were not resupplied from external sources.”[1]
These elements were such as to find that the ADF (original), almost no longer exist and could not regenerate while their entire fief had passed under the control of the FARDC and their leaders neutralized.
Map of operations prepared by Colonel Mamadou Ndala before the launch of Operation Sukola1 in Beni .
In fact, during the visit of the Chiefs of General Staffs of the FARDC and the UPDF, the Ugandan Army, in Madina, one of the ADF headquarters taken over at the time by General Bahuma, the FARDC had stated that the ADF had been defeated. There remained only about three hundred isolated, scattered and wandering fighters. The remained job would be just a Police affair. Without the means of combat and adequate logistical support to continue the fighting, with his command beheaded, the ADF had no more attacked Beni between April and September 2014.
The mysterious death of General Bahuma and the surprise reactivation of alleged ADF
The offensive launched since January 2014 in the Far North by the FARDC supported by the UN Blue Helmets, had strongly weakened the ADF who entrenched themselves – with the hostages – in a corner on the border with Uganda. [2] But in August 2014, General Bahuma, one of the heroes of the war against M23 [3], suddenly dead in Pretoria, capital of South Africa, officially following a cardiac infarction during a security meeting with his Ugandan counterpart of Kasese district town, from where he was evacuated urgently in South Africa, paralyzed and in critical condition. [4] He was replaced by General AkiliMuhindo “Mundos” at the head of Operation Sukola 1.
As can be seen, under the command of the late General Bahuma, the ADF were weakened and entrenched in the forests, merely removing the civilians.
Curiously, after the death of Bahuma and his replacement by general Mundos, these alleged rebels, to the surprise of the military experts, had regained strength. Worse still, they were no longer engaged in hostage-taking, their traditional mode of operation, but in killings of civilian populations (even babies) and heavy weapon attacks with tactical procedures of the traditional armed forces. While crushed and scattered in nature, we can not explain this resurgence of ADF rebels without asking the question about their logistic supply of arms and their modus operandi – stabbing massacres characteristic of Rwandan fighters (Hutu as Tutsi) -. However, the analyzes of the modes of action of the African rebellions clearly show that a rebellion always relies on a neighboring country which serves as a basis for withdrawal and logistical supply. Any rebellion starts without a back base. But the rebellions also rely on internal support, as was the case of the M23, which benefited from the support of integrated regiments within the FARDC and which operate mostly in the Beni operational zone, sometimes in complete autonomy. Thus, it is not excluded that countries like Rwanda or Uganda are involved in this violence, in collusion with some Congolese authorities who want to create chaos for political purposes. [5]
The deliberate destructuring of Operation Sukola 1’s command with the arrival of General Akili Muhindo (Mundos)
General Lucien Bahuma Ambamba, commander of the former 8th Military Region (North Kivu), was at the same time the commander of Operation Sukola 1 following a cardinal military operatic principle : “Field Unit – Command Unit”.[6] This had produced effective results by significantly reducing the nuisance capacity of the ADF. After the death of General Bahuma, Operation Sukola 1 was suspended. It was relaunched with the appointment of General Akili Mohindo ( Mundos ) of the Republican Guard (GR). And it was during the same period that the region began to face very violent attacks attributed to the ADF by the Congolese authorities.
But in April 2015, Okapi Radio, which usually relays information from MONUSCO’s intelligence services, said that FARDC officers would provide suspected ADFs with weapons, ammunition and combat rations reinforcing the suspicion of complicity with the military hierarchy with the ADF networks. Similarly, several analyzes and reports by various experts, including the parliamentary mission conducted in October 2014, and even testimonies that we collected directly from operational military sources deployed in Beni, speak of internal complicities within the FARDC, their passivity and the existence of ex-CNDP units that never accept to be commanded by an officer who is not ethnically theirs. This is the case of the battalion detached from the 31th Mechanized Brigade of the Main Defense Force once commanded by Major General Charles Akili Muhindo which is then headed by colonel Tipi Ziri Zoro. Elements of the 31th Mechanized Brigade of the FDP have their own separate command and their logistics. They rarely obey the orders of the Chief of Staff of the operational sector Sukola 1. According to military sources from Goma, this unit continues to depend on the general Mundos, although the latter is currently the commander of the 33 th military region (South Kivu) in Bukavu.
At each attack, the intervention of the defense and security services was informed beforehand but came late. Paradoxically, when the populations capture the assailants supposed to be ADF, security services arrive urgently. This is the case of the information I received from Beni on the night of December 31, 2015 during which a Rwandophone assailant was captured by the population and that the army and the police arrived to take him while the population was waiting for the authorities to present them to the public.[7]
In another 2015 report, the UN expert group questioned the responsibility attributed to the ADF alone in the Beni killings, arguing that the information collected only confirmed their responsibility in a small minority of cases. [8]
Moreover, analysts note that the massacres that plague the region of Beni since the summer of 2014, mark in appearance, a complete break with the stated intentions and the usual practices of the ADF, more directed towards kidnappings and targeted assassinations of people involved in their commercial activities, their trafficking, and against the FARDC. It was subsequently revealed that MONUSCO had been misled by a certain “Mr. X”, who for several months provided him with misleading information about the links between the ADF and the international jihadist Islamist nebula, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram, through Hezbollah and somalian al-Shebabs. Claiming to be a former ADF commander who reportedly defected, the ubiquitous stories of “Mr. X” about the ADF’s intentions of carrying out an armed Islamist insurgency in eastern DRC in order to turn the country into a “New Mali”[9], contributed to fueling and amplifying the Congolese authorities’ and MONUSCO’s speech on the Islamist terrorist threat hanging over the DRC.[10]
A report published in March 2016[11] by Congo Research Group (GEC) headed by Jason Stearns, former coordinator of the UN Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo, blames the complicity of FARDC units and units of former pro-Rwandan CNDP / M23 rebellions transformed into regiments and sent in Beni.
In his study on the Islamic threat in Africa of the Great Lakes, Myrto Hatzigeorgopoulos arrives at the conclusion that, if the ADF was created by a hard core of radical Muslims, members of the Tabligh sect, and if the majority of the fighters that compose it are Muslim, the group does not seem to be in a logic of ideological expansion of a radical Islam, let alone a process of recruiting candidates for jihad. [12] She quotes Gérard Prunier who, in 1999, described the ADF as “social Islamists”, arguing that “these Islamists, [are] often not even Muslim in the beginning”.[13] Although the activities of the ADF are a major insecurity factor for the populations of the east of the country, the ADF is not in the movement of Islamist terrorism and does not participate in the “ jihadosphere “. No information to date confirms that it has financial and operational links with international terrorist networks.[14] According to many observers, playing the card of Islamic radicalism has allowed ADF to recruit combatants and obtain substantial financial support from Muslim countries, such as Sudan.[15]
The Congolese authorities almost systematically attribute the alleged ADF attacks to international Islamist terrorism without providing any tangible proof.
General Marcel Mbangu Mashita, the Commander of the operation Sukola 1 and an officer of the MONUSCO
Recurrent attacks against the peacekeepers and the FARDC do not correspond to the modus operandi of the ADF nor Islamists
In addition to attacks on civilian populations, usually with knives, the main focus is on peacekeepers – mostly Tanzanians – and the FARDC, who are targeted by heavy-weapon attackers using tactical process commonly used by soldiers of regular army forces. Yet, the ADF has not logistical means or military training to enable them to carry out attacks following the tactical methods of military professionals.
Another primary observation of these attacks calls into question about the involvement of the ADF due to the duration of the fightings. While ADFs usually conduct lightning and time-limited actions, only military combat units, battling particular offensive attack techniques, can lead such a well-targeted assault against well-trained and trained (special) units. and hold more than three hours of combat without dropping out. The assault was likely thoroughly prepared and conducted by hundreds of determined attackers, backed by impressive military resources and coordinated by a professional military command level, who master the tactical military field.
This is the case of the attack of Dec. 7, 2017 against a barracks of Tanzanian peacekeepers MONUSCO, which killed 15 of them, caused 59 wounded and three missing in the FARDC and Peacekeepers units.The fighting lasted three hours. This attack follows a previous attack against Tanzanian peacekeepers on 9 October 2015 during an assault on a MONUSCO base in the Beni region.
Another similar attack took place on 22 September 2018 in the Mupanda district of Ruwenzori commune in the center of Beni. It took place in the perimeter where is located the officers’ mess considered as the FARDC Command Office of the city of Beni. According to FARDC sources in Beni, the attackers had positioned two attack teams. The first towards the Kasinga-Buhili neighborhood launched an attack on an army position with the aim of create diversion before positioning another team of heavily armed men who launched another attack in Mupanda.[16] Reinforcements by MONUC FARDC and MONUSCO peacekeepers did not limit the damage. Analysis of the scenario of the attack shows that the attackers had come to get supplies and had previously received specific information on this warehouse. Only the FARDC soldiers were aware of the existence of this warehouse and what it contained. This is an apparent indication of internal complicity in the military ranks. But another curious fact is that during this same operation, the attackers also released some alleged ADF, including some important personalities, who were detained at the FARDC prison in Mupanda. This attack was also aimed at removing these detainees, whose identity could compromise the theory of the djihad fighters in Beni and remove the evidence.
Another fact of suspicion of internal complicity within the FARDC is that at the time of this attack, the Commander of the Grand Nord Operational Sector and Operations Sukola 1, the Major General Marcel Mbangu, and his troops of confidence were in Lubero, more than 100 kilometers from Beni. It is during his absence from Beni that the attackers launched this attack. His assistant, newly promoted general, Brigadier General Richard Rabi Moyo never organized an adequate response to repel the attack.[17] The attackers operated in complete peace of mind, being sure that they would not be worried. The final toll of this attack was estimated at 18 civilians and four FARDC soldiers killed without any attackers being killed or captured.
The staff of the military operation Sukola 1, located in the strategic area of Paida [18] in Beni, was again the target of an attack on 4 October 2018 by heavily armed men. The attack took place while the operations commander, Major-General Marcel Mbangu, was in an evaluation meeting against the alleged ADF [19] with his staff. A senior officer, Major Yves Bahiga, was killed by the attackers. All the military sources that we contacted have formally refuted the thesis of an ADF attack. These sources report that among the assailants who were heavily armed, some were dressed in uniform of the Congolese National Police. The particularity of this attack is that the attackers were able to penetrate without any difficulty into Paida, in a well-protected strategic military perimeter, to which the civilians never have access except the military previously identified and strictly controlled. Indeed, to reach the Sukola 1 Command Operations Office. Internal complicity within the FARDC? The operational staff of the command of military operations is never attacked with such ease. It is also noted that the clashes in heavy weapons lasted about thirty minutes. Yet, the ADF attack by surprise and drop out without conducting direct confrontations with their targets.
It should be noted that when General Marcel Mbangu was appointed commander of Sukola 1 operations in June 2015, replacing General Mundos, he found unstructured and unsupported units. His units found themselves in short supply of ammunition, fuel and radio equipment (transmissions), all carried away by General Mundos, dissatisfied with his ouster from his post as Commander of Operations Sukola 1. [20] Some regiments, resulting from the CNDP rebellion, were operating under parallel command.[21]
As a reminder, in October 2017, General Mbangu’s convoy was ambushed on the Mbau-Kamango road at kilometer 16, killing some Reaction Force soldiers who accompanied him. Our sources had pointed the shadow of General Mundos. The latter continues to maintain his troops intact in the Beni region, despite his transfer to South Kivu. The attackers wanted to decapitate the staff of Operations Sukola 1, a key pillar of the strategic device of these operations in order to show its inefficiency.
In all of the above-mentioned attacks, the firepower used by the attackers, the extreme violence with heavy weapons that the regular armed forces have in advance more than the rebels, as well as the tactics used, probably refer to operations coordinated military, executed and led by professional military personnel who know the area well for having evolved. Hence the suspicions brought on former CNDP former regiments integrated in the FARDC and elements of the 31st Mechanized Brigade commando Main Defense Forces which act independently of the command of the operation Sukola 1, according to information received from military sources in Beni.
The false Islamist trail to divert attention to the real issues of insecurity in Beni
There is first of all this first report on the attack of 4 October 2018 that took place while a delegation of the United Nations Security Council was staying in the DRC. We know that for some time, Kabila and his collaborators, wanted bring people believe that the massacres of Beni are perpetrated by Islamist Eritrean, Somali and Sudanese fighters in order to accrediting the thesis of the Islamist. The aim is to to clear some officers and units of the army of their responsibility in the perpetration of these attacks. Thus, since December 2016, Kabila had used the services of the Israeli parastatal firm MER Security and Communications Systems to lobby politico-diplomatically in the United States. MER Security and Communications Systems outsourced the powerful US lobby group Sonoran Policy Group (SPG) to carry out this advocacy in Washington. According to Robert Stryk, founder of the GSP, he intends to help the Congolese government coordinate anti-terrorism efforts with Washington and ask the administration of President Donald Trump to open an advanced anti-terrorist operational base in eastern DRC. [22] Behind this strategy, Kabila sought American diplomatic support, with political implications, to support him in waging a war against this universal threat. In this way, he could impose himself as being the only political and security interlocutor valid to counter this threat, given the ignorance of his opponents – even the current president Félix Tshisekedi – on this subject.[23]
We are surprised to note that when he came to power, the new president, Felix Tshisekedi, curiously takes up the same creed of the fight against Islamic terrorism to attract American sympathy. For some, it is a subtle strategy to invite the United States to the DRC to counter the Sino-Russian economic and security expansionism, Kabila’s support, in the region. But according to the information we received from Congolese military sources, it is rather a strategy well mounted by Kabila and some leaders of the region to get Americans to join the Islamic trail to divert their attention to the involvement of someRwandophone units in these massacres and other units, such as the 31th commando brigade once led by General Akili Muhindo Mundos , sanctioned by the United States and the European Union. President Tshisekedi would then be tempted to plead for the lifting of sanctions against him and other officers.
The statement attributed to the Islamic State comes only after President Felix Tshisekedi declared during his stay in Washington to want to engage the DRC in the fight against islamiste terrorism. At the same time,Tshisekedi had chaired a meeting of the High Council of Defense in Lubumbashi where was talk of relieving several officers and units in the region. A decision that is obviously worrying officers and parallel units that act independently of the operational command of Operation Sukola1. Some sources speak of President Tshisekedi’s strategy of bringing American troops into the DRC to counter the military influence of Kabila, which enjoys support from the Russian and Chinese, to neutralize him politically thereafter. A thesis that does not hold because Kabila also has continued to lobby for the military support of the United States.
Another question that arises is what is the real objective of Daesh to settle in an area where there are almost no Muslims and whose country does not participate in operations in the areas where are Islamists. If the IS group claims attacks in Western countries fighting in Syria and Iraq, the bulk of its action remains in this area where the movment wants to establish a geographical caliphate for the benefit of Muslims around the world according to the principles of the Islamic law. In our opinion, there is no spatial, geographical, sociological, human, religious or even ideological continuum between the Islamic State and the eastern Congo region.
Moreover, according to several senior military sources contacted in eastern DRC, during the meeting between President Tshisekedi and the military officials in Beni, the latter gave him a detailed inventory of the military situation in the area in terms of threats and troop needs. General Marcel Mbangu, who was being treated in Kinshasa, was urgently dispatched to attend this meeting. In their briefing, there was never any question of any military activity of Islamists in the region. Our sources are surprised by this statement attributed to the IS while during the presidential stay in Beni, an attack against FARDC positions took place at 8 km from the meeting venue, killing two people without this is reported to the president.
In their report, the following have been identified by the operation command:
– The lack of supervision of the troops on the ground;
– The lack of coordination of field operations and the communication deficit between units in combat; parallel commandments;
– The lack of fire discipline;
– The indiscipline of the military and integrated units;
– Unplanned stall or disengagement;
– Inability to secure or immobilize the enemy to engage;
– Sometimes lack of combat or aggression;
– Insufficient and underperforming military intelligence, sometimes in collusion with the enemy;
– The units (battalions, regiments, brigades) deployed are only named. Their numbers are doubtful;
– Etc.
In their recommendations to the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, the military command called for more military supervision and better collaboration with MONUSCO, which has combatants, carts, aircraft, drones and other modern combat aircraft. and appropriate materials to carry out effective actions. But under Joseph Kabila, collaboration with MONUSCO was discouraged. We recommend that President Tshisekedi strengthen the collaboration between the FARDC and the MONUSCO special brigade, as in the war against the M23.
The DRC should rather fear a threat from Shiite Islamists close to Hezbollah who are linked to the former Kabila regime
Indeed, in our previous analyzes, we noted rather a certain closeness between the former Kabila regime and the financial circles close to the Lebanese Shiites of Hezbollah.[24] Hezbollah Shiites Fight Islamic State in Syria and Lebanon.[25] Among the potential supporters and financiers of Hezbollah in DRC, our research identified several people as the CEO Moussa Fakhi Diamond, El Hadi Dakik, Hussein Charara Man (all diamond dealers), Hussein Jalal (Congo Futur associated with Jaynet Kabila) and Basel Achour ( Socimex ), all closely linked to the Kabila regime.
According to information provided to us by the Congolese intelligence services, Hussein Jalal, Senior Manager of CONGO-FUTUR, has bought properties in the luxury districts of Kinshasa, Gombe, Binza Ma Campagne, Mont-Fleury, Cité du Fleuve (Limete-Kingabwa ). These villas are regularly used as rest and recreation areas for young Lebanese fighters from the armed wing of Hezbollah returning from fighting in Syria. According to these sources, Kinshasa and Abidjan are places of rest and leave of the elements of the armed wing of Hezbolah. They can not take a vacation in Europe or the United States where these fighters are stuck, nor in the Middle East. They then fall back to Africa to relax and recover. The security authorities in the DRC are aware of this information, but close their eyes because they have very strong ties and enjoy financial benefits from the Lebanese community.
It should also be noted that within the FARDC, several officers have been trained in Sudan and / or in Iran. This is the case of General Delphin Kahimbi, the DRC’s military intelligence officer. He attended leadership courses in the School of Military Intelligence of SAF (Sudanese armed forces) in Omdurman in the suburbs of Khartoum. There is also General Mpanga Munkutu, the head of the honor and security regiment, the Presidential office of the GR. Mpanga was formed in Sudan, North Korea[26] and in the Islamic Republic of Iran for 5 years, between 2006-2011. He is fluent in Arabic and Persian. It should also be noted that North Korea and Sudan are among the states that provided military equipment to the DRC in violation of the law on embargoes, that is to say, without the knowledge of the control provided by MONUSCO. In addition, Sudan is the transit base for all Iranian weapons destined for Islamic jihad as well as Hamas in the Gaza strip. Iran grants the license to outsource the production of missiles and rockets to the Sudanese weapons factory in Yarmouk, near Khartoum. Sudan had also served as an intermediary between the DRC and the Islamic Republic of Iran in the framework of military partnership between the latter two states. Several soldiers, or even students in Congolese geostrategy are followed by training in Sudan in collaboration with military academies or universities in Iran. In this regard, I was personally in touch with one of his students who had confessed to having followed his university studies in Sudan and Iran, two countries where he confessed to having been in contact with several Congolese soldiers in training but also other civilians trained in the field of civilian intelligence. Finally, note that most Islamic states form their special units in terrorist and counterterrorist techniques.
However, at now, Congo can not be considered to be at risk over Shiite jihadism. The Lebanese (Shiite) networks that operate in Congo are rather in a logic of enrichment and business. The Congo is, for them, a chicken with golden eggs, and they want never to not be noticed, so that they can be able to enjoy the manna for as long as possible. However, there is reason to question the expertise acquired by agents of the Kabila regime in formations in Islamic countries such as Sudan and Iran. The use of their terrorism and counterterrorism skills under the mask of “Islamism” is a perspective that must be kept in mind. This is particularly in the event of violent account settlements between beneficiaries of Lebanese Shiite networks.
Conclusion
We continue to argue against the thesis of an Islamic threat, let alone the Islamic State in the DRC. The ADF hardly exists anymore as an organized military group since the movement was defeated by General Jean-Lucien Bahuma, in April 2014. Even at the time they were active, the ADF combatants operated with a weak armament and mainly took hostages. This is no longer the case of the attackers in Beni since October 2014, who use heavy weapons and violent methods worthy of professional soldiers.
Several testimonies from survivors of the attacks in the Beni region identified aggressors who spoke either Kiganda or Swahili, with a local Ugandan accent, or Kinyarwanda or even Lingala, a common language within the FARDC. In some testimonies the agressors are discribed as in military uniform or in civilian clothes. The book “CONGO’S BENI MASSACRES: Fake Islamists, Rwandan Unending Occupation“[27], by Boniface Musavuli, gives more indication of who might be the real assailants of Beni. It describes the networks through which these killers were routed over the months into the scrubland of Beni, and the complicity they received from the authorities of Kinshasa, Goma and even Beni.[28]
Jean-Jacques Wondo Omanyundu / ESC Rights Exclusivity
References
[1] Report S / 2015/19 of the UN Panel of Experts of 12 January 2015, p. 7, § 14.
[2] http://emiradamo.com/2014/07/30/rdc-tracts-lances-aux-rebelles-ougandais-in-the-nord-kivu/ .
[3] See JJ Wondo, Les Forces armées de la RD Congo : Une armée irréformable ?, 2015. From 2012, after the fall of Bunagana and the flight of General Vainqueur Mayala and 600 FARDC soldiers, who fled to Kisoro in Uganda, abandoning a huge stockpile of heavy weapons, ammunition and tanks to the M23 rebels, General Bahuma reorganized the combat units by only enganging soldiers from the western provinces and a few Mai -May milicianmen known for their hostility to Rwanda. This reorganization had allowed the FARDC to better defend its positions against the M23. But for unjustified tactical reasons, after the fighting that took place from 15 to 18 November 2012 during the entry of the M23 into Goma, during which the FARDC opposed the M23 fierce resistance and inflicted heavy losses on their enemy, more than 150 dead on the rebel side, General Bahuma had received the order from Kinshasa to leave the conduct of operations to General Gabriel Amisi. It will order this officer that the FARDC withdrew to Sake, facilitating the entry of the M23 into Goma, without resistance.
[4] Some sources already gave him for dead before his air medical transfer.
[5] Jean-Jacques Wondo , The Armed Forces of DR Congo : An irreformable army? ( DESC, 2014), p.61.
[6] In the book “Les Armées au Congo-Kinshasa”, the Command Unit, a key concept in the military organization, requires that a single leader have all the powers in the areas and geographical space of the country for which he is responsible. This clearly implies that each subordinate receives orders only from the one superior (hierarchical and functional at the same time) and that he is accountable only to the one who has explicitly assigned him the mission.
[7] http://afridesk.org/en/the-military-operations-Sukola-1-and-2-aux-kivu-and-the-governmental-game-latents-jj-wondo/ .
[8] United Nations Security Council, Letter dated 16 October 2015 from the Panel of Experts Addressed to the President of the Security Council by Security Council Resolution 2198 (2015), S / 2015/797 (New York: United Nations Security Council, October 16, 2015), p. 23.
[9] Fahey, Daniel, ” Congo’s ” Mr X “: The Man Who Fooled the UN,” World Policy Journal , 33: 2 (2016), pp. 91- 100, p. 98.
[10] Myrto Hatzigeorgopoulos, La menace islamiste dans la région des Grands Lacs : un enjeu sécuritaire utile?,
SÉCURITÉ & STRATÉGIE N°133, Janvier 2018, Institut Royal Supérieur de Défense Centre d’Etudes de Sécurité et Défense, p.10.
[11] GEC, Who are the killers of Beni ? Investigation Report No1 March 2016.
[12] Myrto Hatzigeorgopoulos, op. cit., p.11.
[13] Prunier, Gérard, “Uganda and the Congolese Wars”, African Policy , 1999/3 N ° 75, p. 46.
[14] Myrto Hatzigeorgopoulos, op. cit., p.11.
[15] See: Hovil , Lucy and Werker, Eric , op. cit., p. 10; Titeca , Kristof and Vlassenroot, Koen, op. cit., pp. 162, 166-167. Quoted by Myrto Hatzigeorgopoulos .
[16] But why attack Mupanda ? Was the goal to enter the city of Beni? According to our military sources, when the attackers crisscross the perimeter of the area Mupanda where the officers’ mess is, the FARDC lightly beat in retreat and place two lines of defense at the roundabout Nyamwisi Beni, so about 100 meters from the officers’ mess. These sources say that assailants with porters took away several sacks of maize flour and rice from an enclosure within the fighting area.
[17] Even worse, some members of the local civil society told us that the attack took place a few hundred meters from where the commander of the town of Beni took serenely, and casually, a beer in a terrace of the place, without flinching.
[18] Paida is a neighborhood located some 5 kilometers from the city center of Beni. Major-General Marcel Mbangu, decided to set up his command office in Paida for tactical, operatic and strategic reasons. First from this position of the army installed on a hill, the command has a view, on one side, on the city of Beni and, on the other, on the former training camp of Nyaleke. This position also makes it possible to have a rapid reaction device in the event of an attack on the Beni-Kasindi road linking the cities of Beni and Butembo to East Africa, from the Kasindi – Lubiriha border with Uganda. It is also in Paida that the FARDC have installed their communications center (CCom) operations Sukola 1 for almost three months.
[19] JJ Wondo, Les tueries à Beni : Le général Marcel Mbangu connaîtra-t-il le même sort que Mamadou Ndala et Lucien Bahuma ? DESC, 11 octobre 2018. http://afridesk.org/fr/les-tueries-a-beni-le-general-marcel-mbangu-connaitra-t-il-le-meme-sort-que-mamadou-ndala-lucien-bahuma/.
[20] JJ Wondo, Les opérations militaires Sukola 1 et 2 aux Kivu et les enjeux géopolitiques sous-jacents. DESC, 16 juin 2016. http://afridesk.org/fr/les-operations-militaires-Sukola-1-et-2-aux-kivu-et-les-enjeux-geopolitiques-latents-jj-wondo/.
[21] Information received from an intelligence officer from the 34th military region in Goma.
[22] https://i0.wp.com/afridesk.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SONORAN-Group-SPG.png .
[23] http://afridesk.org/en/joseph-kabila-continues-to-over-equip-his-regime-militarily-for-the-upcoming-political-deadlines-jj-wondo/ .
[24] JJ Wondo Omanyundu, Jean-Jacques, « Les traces du djihad islamique en RDC –une menace pour le sommet de la Francophonie ? 1ère partie », Défense et sécurité du Congo, juin 2012. Consulté le 13 juin 2017 au lien suivant: http://www.congoforum.be/upldocs/LES%20TRACES%20DU%20TERRORISME%20EN%20RDC.JJW-Juin.2012.%20I%C3%A8re%20Partie.pdf.; JJ Wondo Omanyundu, « Sur les traces du djihad islamique en RDC ? », Défense et sécurité du Congo, 16 juillet 2013. Consulté le 17 juillet 2017 au lien suivant : http://afridesk.org/fr/dossier-special-sur-les-traces-du-djihad-islamique-en-rdc/.
[25] http://elnetwork.fr/hezbollah-lance-game-video-guerre-syria .
[26] Between 2007 and 2009, Mpanga returned to Pyongyang for VIP Close Protection training.
[27] The book is available on this link: https://www.amazon.fr/CONGOS-BENI-MASSACRES-Islamists-Occupation/dp/1983214744 .
[28] B. Musavuli, Attaques de Beni : L’ennemi se cache dans l’armée, DESC, 30 octobre 2017. http://afridesk.org/fr/beni-lennemi-se-cache-larmee-b-musavuli/.
