5 Ugandan rebels accused of war crimes

KAMPALA, Uganda, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- The United Nations' new International Criminal Court has issued its first arrest warrants, citing five leaders of a Uganda rebel group.

The five are members of the Lord's Resistance Army accused of 19 years of slaughtering peasants and kidnapping children in northern Uganda, the Times of London said.

Identities of the five men will not be made public until they have been captured. It is, however, considered certain that Joseph Kony, the LRA's self-professed mystic leader, is among them.

Kony's gang has reportedly kidnapped more than 30,000 children from their homes at gunpoint. Boys are forced to become soldiers. Girls, as young as 8, are forced to become sex slaves for fighters.

William Lacy Swing, the U.N. special representative in the Congo, said notifications for the arrests were sent out last week to the governments of Congo, Uganda and Sudan, where the LRA rebels operate from a series of hidden bases.