KAMPALA, Uganda, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- Uganda's president has claimed decisive victory over northern rebels whose signature tactic is child abductions, the Telegraph in London reported Friday.
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda said the so-called Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) had been "defeated decisively" and that troops were on the verge of killing the rebel military and spiritual leader, Joseph Kony.
However, this week, LRA fighters burst into a refugee camp -- supposedly under army protection -- and burned three old men to death.
A recent army offensive has had only limited success. In December government troops killed a total of six rebels, captured seven and rescued 56 children.
In the past year alone the LRA has abducted over 8,000 children, almost as many as it seized over the previous decade, spiriting them away to Kony's camps in the bush. There they are allegedly indoctrinated into the ways of his cult.
