The U.N. Security Council unanimously agreed Thursday to send 3,100 more peacekeeping troops to conflict-wracked Congo.
In approving the decision, members of the 15-nation council said the dire situation required beefing up the 17,000-strong peacekeeping force as requested by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The added troops would bring the total figure to around 20,000.
Some nations also said the increase could encourage a political resolution of the clashes between fighters loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda and the Congolese army that have created a humanitarian crisis.
Since the fighting erupted in August, at least 250,000 people have been forced to flee their homes and camps where they had previously taken refuge.
Rebel warning
The Congolese rebels have said they are still committed to keeping their troops pulled back from front lines further north, but rebel spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa warned: if the U.N. peacekeeping force "is not able to keep quiet in this area ... we'll go and attack these groups who are trying to take control of that area."
The rebels said earlier Thursday that they had fended off an attack from the army, pro-government Mai Mai militias and Rwandan Hutu rebels but remained committed to keeping troops pulled back from the front lines.
Bisimwa said their troops were attacked in Katoro, a small village near Kiwanja, about 45 miles north of Goma. Rebels fended off the attack after two hours "and the situation is now calm," Bisimwa said.
On Wednesday, the United Nations confirmed that hundreds of rebel forces had pulled back from three front lines in eastern Congo. U.N. peacekeeping spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich had called the move "a positive step."
Hopeful move
The United Nations was hoping the rebels' deliberate retreat would be one step toward brokering peace in the volatile Central Africa nation.
Years of sporadic violence in eastern Congo intensified in August, when fighting heated up between the army and fighters loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda.
Nkunda says he is protecting Tutsis from Hutus who fled to Congo after Rwanda's 1994 genocide. But critics say he is more interested in power and accuse his forces of committing multiple human rights abuses.
An Associated Press reporter verified the withdrawal on one of the fronts just south of Kanyabayonga at Rwindi, the northern headquarters of Virunga National Park, home to some of the world's last remaining mountain gorillas.
On Wednesday, Rwindi's main road was empty, with rebels visible only a few dozen miles to the south at a park station checkpoint that had been abandoned by rangers. Herds of elephants roamed fields of pristine green savannah grass in the area. Baboons scurried across empty roads.
