Better drones can help find Kony, Clinton hopes

Associated Press

ENTEBBE, Uganda

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she hopes drones soon will be able to see through jungle cover so they can locate warlord Joseph Kony.

Clinton made the remark in Uganda as she watched a small U.S.-made drone that the Ugandan military uses in Somalia to fight al-Qaida- linked militants.

The U.S. last year sent 100 special-forces advisers to Central Africa to help hunt Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a band of jungle-roaming militants known for kidnapping children, taking girls as sex slaves and disfiguring victims. Ugandan forces are at the forefront in the hunt for Kony, whose campaign of terror originated in Uganda but who now is elsewhere in central Africa.

“Now we have to figure out how we can see through thick vegetation to find Joseph Kony,” Clinton said at a Ugandan military base on Lake Victoria shortly after meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. She chuckled as she made the comment, but it was clear she was serious about boosting the capabilities of troops searching for Kony.

Kony’s terror rampage was made famous earlier this year by a viral Internet campaign by the U.S.-based aid group Invisible Children. The U.S. troops helping in the hunt are in Uganda, Central African Republic, South Sudan and Congo.