President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has accepted and granted authorization for the deployment of the US Special Forces to help the country’s military in the battle against the ISCAP.
According to a statement released by the presidency, the US forces will boost the Congolese army’s fight against ADF in the national parks of Virunga and Garamba and the mission is expected to last a few weeks.
The U.S. State Department declared ISCAP a terror organization as well as sanctioning the leader Seka Musa Baluku which were mainly triggered by the group’s affiliation to ISIS-Central.
The injection of the US troops into the fight in the restive DRC region is a positive sign but the impact is yet to be seen, this is because ISCAP has proved resilient and quite resourceful in their attacks despite their being a strong military and UN peacekeepers presence. The entry of the US troops ought to serve as a turning point and should be exploited by the security apparatus in DRC to change tactics to morph to adapt to meet the threat posed by ISCAP.
The actors must look for different solutions that will limit the number of civilians killed and focus on strategies that lead to the permanent eradication of the terror organization and address the historical root causes of the insurgency and rebels in the restive region.
