LRA raid on Congo park kills 20

By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Twenty people were killed in a raid by Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army rebels on a park ranger station in northern Democratic Republic of Congo, local officials said on Monday.

Dozens of LRA fighters attacked the headquarters of the Garamba National Park in the town of Negero, in Congo's Orientale province, late on Friday.

"Ten people were killed, including two women, two park rangers, an electrician and five other civilians who have not yet been identified," Orientale's Deputy Governor Joseph Bangakya told Reuters.

Ten rebels were also killed in the four-hour gunbattle with armed park rangers and Congolese soldiers based at Negero's airstrip as part of a three-week-old multinational assault on LRA strongholds in northeastern Congo, Bangakya said.

In two separate attacks on Sunday, LRA gunmen raided a protestant mission in the Congolese village of Napopo and attacked Laso, a village in Sudan, local officials said. It was not immediately clear whether anyone died in the incidents.

Forces led by Uganda and including Congolese and South Sudanese soldiers began bombing LRA bases in the park on Dec. 14 after the rebels' leader Joseph Kony again failed to sign a deal to end his rebellion against Uganda's government.

The operations received the unanimous blessing of United Nations Security Council member states. Ugandan and Congolese officials have said the offensive succeeded in destroying most of the LRA's bases in Congo.

However, coalition forces have so far failed to locate Kony, who along with two deputies is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and his rebellion is now waging a brutal campaign against local villagers.