Rebels kill 3 Indian peacekeepers in Congo

[August 18, 2010]  KINSHASA, Congo (AP) -- Dozens of rebels attacked a U.N. peacekeeping base under darkness in eastern Congo early Wednesday, killing three Indian soldiers and wounding seven other peacekeepers, an Indian army official said.

Indian army spokesman Virendra Singh said up to 50 rebels attacked a base in Kirumba in North Kivu province around 2 a.m., leading to an exchange of gunfire.

Nearly 4,000 Indian army soldiers are part of the U.N. Congo peacekeeping mission, which has about 20,000 people from various countries.

Repeated rebel attacks in Congo have called into question the ability of the U.N. force to protect civilians. The mission known as MONUC has lost more than 100 peacekeepers since 1999.

Congo's president has said that he wants all the peacekeepers out before September 2011 and the U.N. started a nominal withdrawal last month. U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes and humanitarian groups, though, have warned that violence may spiral out of control if the peacekeepers all leave.

Rebels ousted longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, then turned on each other in back-to-back civil wars that became an international scramble for the country's minerals and drew in soldiers from more than a half-dozen African nations.

The $1.35 billion-a-year U.N. mission helped hold Congo's first democratic elections in 40 years in 2006, though results were disputed and critics said the process favored the incumbent, Joseph Kabila.

[Associated Press; By PATRICE CITERA]

Associated Press writer Ashok Sharma contributed to this report from New Delhi.

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