Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi's body lay in an old meat store

ஒரு முஸ்லீமின் இறுதிக்கிரிகை சமயச் சட்டப்படி 24 மணி நேரத்துக்குள் முடிக்கப்பட வேண்டும்.


NTC ஏகாதிபத்திய கருங்காலிக் கும்பல் இந்தக் கடமையை நிறைவேற்றவில்லை.


பாவனையில் இல்லாத பழைய இறைச்சிக்கடைப் பகுதி ஒன்றில் பிணத்தைக் காட்சிக்கு வைத்து ஜனநாயகத்துக்கு பிரச்சாரம் செய்கிறது!


துர்நாற்றத்தைத் தவிர்க்க``மக்களுக்கு``சுவாசப் பாதுகாப்பு கவசங்களைக் கூட வழங்கியிருக்கிறது!


எங்கு புதைப்பது என்பதில் சர்ச்சையாம்!
பகிரங்கமாகப் புதைத்தால் அந்த இடம் வழிபாட்டுத்தலம் ஆகி விடுமாம்;
`` 42 ஆண்டு கால சர்வாதிகாரிக்கு``!!


அதனால் இரகசியமாகப் புதைக்க ஜனநாயக விவாதம் நடக்கிறதாம்!


நாளை ஞாயிறு உதிப்பது லிபியாவின் சுதந்திர தினமாம்!


``இது ஒரு புதினமாம் தோழி, நரியை விழுங்கிச்சாம் கோழி``.

Gaddafi, in meat locker, still divides Libya

Fri Oct 21, 2011 7:27pm BST

* Arguments over disposal of body held in market cold store

* Reuters reporter sees body with bullet in side of head

* New leaders, Western backers hail dawn of new Libya

* Challenge now to impose order on array of armed groups (Adds delayed liberation date, NATO comment, details, edits)

By Rania El Gamal

MISRATA, Libya, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Muammar Gaddafi's body lay in an old meat store on Friday as arguments over a burial, and his killing after being captured, dogged efforts by Libya's new leaders to make a formal start on a new era of democracy.

With a bullet wound visible through the familiar curly hair, the corpse seen by Reuters in Misrata bore other marks of the violent end to a violent life, still being broadcast to the world a day later on looping snatches of gory cellphone video.

The interim prime minister offered a tale of "crossfire" to explain the fallen strongman's death after he was dragged, still alive, from a storm drain in his home town of Sirte. But seeing him being beaten, while demanding legal rights, to the sound of gunfire, many assume he was simply summarily shot.

Gaddafi's wife, who found refuge in neighbouring Algeria while her husband and several sons kept their word to fight to the death, was reported to have demanded an inquiry from the United Nations. The U.N. human rights arm said one was merited.

Controversy over the final moments of a man who once held the world in thrall with a mixture of eccentricity and thuggery raised questions about the ability of Libya's National Transitional Council to control the men with guns, and disquiet among Western allies about respect for human rights among those who claimed to be fighting for just those ideals.

The body appeared to be the latest object of wrangling among the factions of fighters who overthrew him -- along with control of weapons, of ministries and of Libya's oil wealth.

Libyans, and the Western allies who backed the revolt that ended Gaddafi's 42-year rule two months ago, have indicated their impatience to begin what the United States declared was a democratic "new era". NATO was expected to agree on Friday to start winding down its seven-month air campaign over Libya.

But regional and other rivalries have been holding up the disposal of the corpse of Gaddafi, who was seized by fighters on Thursday, and a formal declaration of Libya's "liberation".

BURIAL DISPUTE

"They are not agreeing on the place of burial. Under Islam he should have been buried quickly but they have to reach an agreement whether he is to be buried in Misrata, Sirte, or somewhere else," one senior NTC official told Reuters.

Others said talks were under way with members of Gaddafi's tribe to dispose of him in secret, avoiding creating a shrine.

In Misrata, a local commander, Addul-Salam Eleiwa, showed off the body, torso bare, on a mattress inside a metal-lined cold-store by a market. He said: "He will get his rights, like any Muslim. His body will be washed and treated with dignity. I expect he will be buried in a Muslim cemetery within 24 hours."

But amid the rumour and counter-rumour swirling between Sirte, Gaddafi's last bastion, and Misrata, whose siege at his hands made it a symbol of resistance, nothing was certain.

Interim oil minister Ali Tarhouni said he urged colleagues to hold off burying Gaddafi for several days. Dozens of people, many with cellphone cameras, filed in to see that he was dead.

"There's something in our hearts we want to get out," said Abdullah al-Suweisi, 30, as he waited. "It is the injustice of 40 years. There is hatred inside. We want to see him."

In a small triumph for those who were inspired by Arab Spring uprisings elsewhere to launch the rebellion in February in Benghazi, the eastern city was chosen as the venue for NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil to announce that the whole country was liberated. But the planned announcement was delayed from Saturday to Sunday.

That will set a clock ticking on a tentative timetable for a transitional government and for drafting a constitution, under which full elections would, Libyans hope, take place within a year or two.

There has been tension between the easterners and leaders from Misrata, Tripoli and other western cities, who take credit for overrunning the capital in August and complain they are under-represented in an interim government which has yet to move fully to Tripoli. Under the post-liberation plan, that is supposed to happen within weeks, though some in Benghazi, home to much of the oil industry, are keen to decentralise power.

RISKS OF DIVISION

As shown by the delay over burying Gaddafi, differences of opinion in a country that spent 42 years obeying the whims of one man take time to work out - time that worries some observers in light of the heavy weaponry that abounds in Libya.

The uncertain whereabouts of Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi's son and heir-apparent, believed by NTC officials to have escaped from besieged Sirte and be heading for a southern border, may also distract from the process of switching from war to peace.

And without the glue of hatred for Gaddafi and his clan, some fear a descent into the kind of strife that bedevils Iraq after Saddam Hussein, even if Libya lacks its sectarian divide. Optimists point to how, in two months of controlling Tripoli, the Libyan factions have argued but, so far, not fought.

"Can an inclusive, effective national government be formed? Yes, if factions can avoid fighting," Jon Marks, chairman of Britain's Cross Border Information consultancy said. "So it's all about the politics, and the $64,000 question is whether the new polity can retain the overall consensual feel you had during the revolution, or whether dangerous splits will occur."

Long-standing regional rivalries in a country only put together under Italian colonial rule in the 1930s are part of a complex of tribal, ethnic and other divisions which Gaddafi exploited at times to control the thinly populated country of six million and its substantial oil and gas resources.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received first news of Gaddafi's capture in a phone message. "Wow," she exclaimed, looking into a phone handed to her by an aide in Kabul.

Speaking in Islamabad on Friday, Clinton said Gaddafi's death marked the start of a "new era" for the Libyan people.

Nabil Elaraby, chief of the Arab League which in March had given NATO actions a regional seal of approval, called for unity: Libyans should "overcome the wounds of the past, look towards the future away from sentiments of hatred and revenge."

China echoed calls for unity. It said there was a need for "an inclusive political process".

OIL INTERESTS

Russia, which like China was cool to NATO's help for the rebels, may share its concern for investments after a senior Libyan oil official said representatives of Moscow's Gazprom had been summoned to Tripoli to explain what he called breaches of commitments made in contracts it signed under Gaddafi.

Companies from France and Britain, which drove the initial Western support for the rebellion, hope that will stand them in good stead as Libya's new leaders start allocating new deals.

Among those disappointed by his death were advocates of the International Criminal Court, which had hoped to try him for crimes against humanity, and relatives of those who died in the Lockerbie airliner bombing, still looking for answers more than two decades after a presumed Libyan bomb downed the jumbo jet.

"Investigating whether or not his death was a war crime might be unpopular," Amnesty International's Claudio Cordone said. "However, the NTC must apply the same standards to all, affording justice even to those who categorically denied it to others. Bringing Gaddafi to trial would have finally given his numerous victims answers as to why they were targeted and an opportunity

Gaddafi execution reveals western double-standards- Rohitha Bogollagama

War time FM: Gaddafi execution reveals western double-standards
The Island October 21, 2011, 9:39 pm

By Shamindra Ferdianndo

Sri Lanka’s wartime Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said that the public execution of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi near Sirte by troops loyal to the interim administration installed by the West had revealed the duplicity of those attacking Sri Lanka over accountability issues.

The much touted "Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ was nothing compared to videos of the execution of Gaddafi, Bogollagama told The Island in a brief interview yesterday. The West couldn’t wash its hands off Gaddafi’s execution due to the presence of coalition military personnel, including advisors in Libya, the former MP said. The execution of a man pleading for his life highlighted the abuses committed by those fighting for the interim administration, he said, recalling the controversial circumstances, under US Special Forces killed unarmed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during a raid in Pakistan a couple of months ago.

As both the British and the French had claimed credit for spearheading the campaign against Gaddafi, they, too, should be answerable for the excesses on the part of the rebel forces.

Bogollagama pointed out that unlike the unsubstantiated ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ and the controversial ‘Darusman report’ authentic videos of bin Ladens killing and Gaddafi’s execution should prompt an international probe.

The London headquartered Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group (ICG) now spearheading the anti-Sri Lanka campaign at the behest of the LTTE could now take up the Libyan issue, the former MP said. "Don’t forget they declined an invitation from the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission in support of their campaign for international inquiry," Bogollagama said.

Recalling ongoing attempts to challenge Sri Lanka’s membership at the Commonwealth over accountability issues, Bogollagama said that the grouping should take up the Libyan issue. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting would be held in Perth, Western Australia at the end of this month. Referring to the recent moves against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva and the UNGA, Bogollagama said that the Commonwealth, too, was being used by interested parties to undermine Sri Lanka.

ஒபாமா, கமெரன்,சாக்கோசி பயங்கரவாதிகளால் லிபியத் தளபதி கடாபி கோரக்கொலை!

லிபிய தேசியத் தளபதி படுகொலை

நவீன காலனியாதிக்கத்தின் நரமாமிச வேட்டை.

ஏகாதிபத்திய வாதிகளின் நவீன காலனியாதிக்க உலக மறுபங்கீட்டு பாசிச தேச வேட்டையில் மற்றொரு மண்ணின் மைந்தன் படுகொலை!

ஒபாமா, கமெரன்,சாக்கோசி பயங்கரவாதிகளால் லிபியத் தளபதி கடாபி கோரக்கொலை!

TNA to brief Clinton on talks with Govt.

TNA to brief Clinton on talks with Govt.

By Chris Kamalendran The Sunday Times SL
A four-member Tamil National Alliance (TNA) delegation led by parliamentary group leader R. Sampanthan will leave for Washington on October 25 following an invitation from the US government.
The visit comes at a time when the talks between the government and the TNA remain stalled.

TNA parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran, a member of the TNA delegation to Washington, said they would meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Assistant Secretary of State Robert O Blake, among others and brief them on the status of the TNA’s talks with the government.

He pointed out that this was the first time that the US government had invited a Tamil political delegation from Sri Lanka for talks.

The TNA delegation, which also includes Mavai Senathirajah and M. Sumanthiran, will visit Canada and Britain before they return to Sri Lanka.

Commenting on the dialogue with the government, Mr. Premachandran said the talks were to be resumed on October 3 but were postponed because the ministers were busy doing election work.
The MP said the TNA had asked the government to set aside three days for talks but the party had not received a response yet. “We are disappointed that the talks are getting delayed,” Mr. Premachandran said.

However, Sajin Vass Gunawardena, a member of the government delegation, said the talks were delayed because several of the government and TNA members had gone out of Sri Lanka – a claim disputed by Mr. Premachandran.

Mr. Gunawardena said a new date would be fixed for talks as soon as the TNA delegation returned from the US. Meanwhile, President Mahinda Rajapaksa earlier this week said the government would go ahead with the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee to find a solution to the national question.

நாம் தமிழர்

Aghanistan no better for ten years of war

Afghanistan Sun

Thursday 13th October, 2011  

((Op-ed) Ramzy Baroud)

  •  Afghanistan invaded ten years ago this month

  •  Country as corrupt, out of control, and unstable as ever

  •  Taliban growing from strength to strength

On July 1, 2002, US planes bombed an Afghan wedding in the small village of Deh Rawud.

Located to the north of Kandahar, the village seemed fortified by the region’s many mountains. For a few hours, its people thought they were safe from a war they had never invited. They celebrated, and as customs go, fired intermittently into the air. 

The joyous occasion however, turned into an orgy of blood that will define the collective memory of Deh Rawud for generations. 

It was reported that the US air force used a B-52 bomber and an AC-130 helicopter gunship in a battle against imagined terrorists. According to Afghan authorities, 40 people were killed and 100 wounded (The Guardian, July 2, 2002). Expectedly, the US military refused to apologize. 

The bombing of Deh Rawud was a microcosm of the war - and equally lethal occupation - that followed. While al-Qaeda was not an imagined enemy, the invasion and destruction of Afghanistan was a morally repugnant – and self-contradictory - response to terrorism. 

The war remains repulsive ten years after the US began attacking the poorest country on earth. This latest crime against humanity in Afghanistan is a continuation of a trend that has spanned decades. Unfortunate Afghanistan was designated a pawn in a Great Game between powerful contenders vying for strategic control and easy access to natural resources. Throughout history, Afghanistan has been brutalized simply because of its geographical location. 

The people of Afghanistan should not expect an apology for the war either. “The United States invaded Afghanistan to crush an al-Qaeda base of operations whose leader, Osama bin Laden, oversaw the 9/11 terrorist attacks — and to make sure Afghanistan would not be a haven for Muslim terrorists to plot against the West,” wrote Carmen Gentile and Jim Michaels in USA Today, October 6. Such justification has permeated mainstream media like a mantra. 

Malalai Joya, a former Afghan MP and human rights activist, dared to challenge this dubious rationale. In a video message recorded on the tenth anniversary of the war and occupation of Afghanistan, she said: 

“Ten years ago the U.S. and NATO invaded my country under the fake banners of women's rights, human rights, and democracy. But after a decade, Afghanistan still remains the most uncivil, most corrupt, and most war-torn country in the world. The consequences of the so-called war on terror has only been more bloodshed, crimes, barbarism, human rights and women's rights violations, which has doubled the miseries and sorrows of our people” (Monthly Review, October 7). 

Army commanders and neoconservative think-tanks are frantically trying to find reasons for celebration. Neither has been able to accept moral responsibility for the crimes committed in Afghanistan under their command. 

Marine Gen. John Allen, for example, still sees “real gains, particularly in the south,” as a result of counterinsurgency efforts which he supposedly mastered in Iraq. “Insurgencies are effective when they have access to the population,” he said. “When they are excluded from the population, then insurgencies have a very hard time.” 

A strange assessment, considering the fact that the Taliban are not alien bodies from outer space, and worse, still seem to be effectively controlling the country. When the Paris-based research group, the International Council on Security and Development claimed the Taliban controlled 72 percent of Afghanistan, NATO commanders dismissed the allegation as simply untrue (Bloomberg, December 8, 2008). 

“The Taliban are now dictating terms in Afghanistan, both politically and militarily,” said Paul Burton, ICOS Director of Policy. “There is a real danger the Taliban will simply overrun Afghanistan.”

Concurrently, there are those who argue that this was in the past, and since then President Obama (in 2009) approved a surge of more than 30,000 troops with the very aim of pushing the Taliban back. Such a move would allow state-building efforts to commence, thus preparing Afghanistan for the withdrawal of foreign troops in December 2014.

Such claims are backed by the latest Department of Defense biannual report to Congress on Afghanistan. The surge has produced “tangible security progress”, claimed the report, and the “coalition's efforts have wrested major safe havens from the insurgents' control, disrupted their leadership networks and removed many of the weapons caches and tactical supplies they left behind at the end of the previous fighting season.” 

But reality on the ground tells a different story. The Taliban is in control of the vast majority of the country’s provinces (according to Al Jazeera, October 7). Their near-complete control of the east and south, and constant encroachment elsewhere are only cemented by the regular news of their highly coordinated targeting of Afghanistan officials and foreign forces, even in the heart of Kabul. The Taliban’s behavior hardly suggests that it’s a militant movement on the retreat, but rather a shadow government in waiting. In fact, ‘shadow governors’ is the term being used to refer to Taliban officials administering much of the country. 

“Recent events strongly suggest that the US and its NATO allies are losing the war in Afghanistan to the Taliban: top collaborator officials are knocked off at the drop of a Taliban turban,” wrote US professor James Petras. (Global Research, October 11). 

As for the claim that Afghanis are better off as a result of the US military invasion, the numbers tell a different story. Sadly, few kept count of Afghan casualities in the first five years of the war. According to modest UN estimates, “11,221 civilians have been killed since 2006, 1,462 of them in the first six months of this year” (LA Times, October 7). 

Three photographs were published by the German news organization, Der Spiegel last March. They were of US soldiers (known as the Kill Team) posing with mutilated Afghani civilians from Kandahar last year. They were horrifying to say the least, and scarcely give the impression of any kind of ‘tangible progress’. 

“It was during Obama's administration that civilian death tolls increased by 24 percent,” said Malalai Joya. “And the result of the surge of troops of Obama's administration is more massacres, more crimes, violence, destruction, pain, and tragedy.” 

And yet, there is no apology. Ten years after the war on Afghanistan bgan it is almost as though the sons and daughters of Afghanistan are mere numbers, dispensable and extraneous. 

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), available on Amazon.com.

மத்திய ஆபிரிக்காவில் ஒபாமா திறக்கும் அடுத்த உலக மறுபங்கீட்டு போர்க்களமுனை.

ஏகபோக முதலாளித்துவத்தின் மூன்றாவது உலகப் பொது நெருக்கடியில் இருந்து மீள்வதற்கு ஏகாதிபத்தியவாதிகள் உலக மறு பங்கீட்டுப் பிராந்திய யுத்தங்களை நடத்தி வருகின்றார்கள்!

சோவியத் சமூக ஏகாதிபத்தியத்தின் வீழ்ச்சிக்குப் பின்னால்

முதலில் கிழக்கைரோப்பிய நாடுகளைப் பங்கீடு செய்தார்கள்.

இரண்டாவதாக மத்திய ஆசியாவைப் பங்கீடு செய்தார்கள்.

மூன்றாவதாக மத்திய ஆபிரிக்காவுக்குள் நுழைகின்றார்கள் 

ஒபாமா திறக்கும் உகண்டா களமுனை இந்தத் தொடர் யுத்தத்தின் அடுத்த உலக மறுபங்கீட்டு போர்க்களமுனையே ஆகும்!

=புதிய ஈழப்புரட்சியாளர்கள்=

U.S. Deploys Troops in Pursuit of African Rebels

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has authorized the deployment of up to 100 combat-equipped U.S. troops to central Africa to help hunt down the leaders of a rebel force known as the Lord's Resistance Army.

A senior administration official said 12 troops have been deployed so far under what he called a training mission aimed at helping African forces find and kill Joseph Kony, the fugitive head of the rebels.

The U.S. forces will deploy to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

"Although the U.S. forces are combat-equipped, they will only be providing information, advice, and assistance to partner nation forces, and they will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defense," Mr. Obama said in a letter to Congress released Friday.

The U.S. deployment will include special operations forces, defense officials said. Pentagon officials noted that U.S. forces are routinely deployed to Africa for training missions.

 Former U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin discusses the White House's decision to send up to 100 combat-equipped U.S. troops to central Africa to help hunt down leaders of a rebel force known as the Lord's Resistance Army.

The Lord's Resistance Army is believed to have killed, kidnapped and mutilated tens of thousands of civilians since the 1990s. Military officials said they believed Mr. Kony, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, and other top LRA leaders are currently hiding the Central African Republic.

The LRA, which says it is a religious group, first emerged in northern Uganda in the 1990s but was driven out by the Ugandan military. Although Mr. Kony is thought to command just a few hundred armed loyalists, the LRA's mobility and the difficulties of the terrain has made the group hard to find, officials said.

Foreign Firms Angle for Uganda's Oil Reserves

by  Guy Chazan and Nicholas Bariyo|The Wall Street Journal|Monday, February 01, 2010

(THE WALL STREET JOURNAL), Feb. 1, 2010

A skirmish over an oil field on the shores of Africa's Lake Albert highlights Big Oil's intense interest in Uganda -- a rising star of African energy.

The battle centers on the Ugandan assets of Heritage Oil PLC, a small U.K.-based explorer, which is selling its stakes in the much-coveted Lake Albert Rift Basin. The area has yielded some of sub-Saharan Africa's largest onshore oil discoveries of recent years.

Big energy companies like Italy's Eni SpA, France's Total SA and China National Offshore Oil Co. all are vying for access to Uganda's oil wealth. Uganda's onshore oil is particularly appealing because it is relatively inexpensive to produce. That sets it apart from other frontier provinces, like the deep waters off Brazil's coast and the Arctic Ocean, where the majors require an oil price of around $60 a barrel just to break even.

Initially, Eni looked to be the likely winner, announcing in November that it was buying Heritage's stakes for $1.5 billion in cash and assets. But Tullow Oil PLC, Heritage's partner in the oil field, exercised its contractual right to block the sale and acquire the stakes itself at the same price.

Tullow's purchase, however, is subject to approval by the Ugandan government. The initial reaction was negative, with the country's energy minister saying the government didn't want one company to end up with control of the whole oil field and would prevent the sale if necessary.

Heritage and Tullow share ownership of two blocks in the oil field, while Tullow owns all of a third. Acquiring Heritage's stakes would give Tullow full ownership of all three blocks, covering 3,900 square miles, more than twice the area of Rhode Island.

The government's position appeared to soften after Tullow Chief Executive Aidan Heavey met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in Kampala recently. Tullow said that once in full possession of the oil field it would sell half to either Cnooc or Total to help finance the construction of a refinery and an 800-mile pipeline that would carry the oil to world markets.

Such an arrangement would allow Tullow to control who it works with as well as concentrate on its core activities -- exploring for and pumping oil, rather than refining and transporting it to market.

Tullow also announced plans last Wednesday to raise around $1.6 billion in a rights issue to help it develop Uganda's oil.

Tullow now is the favorite to take the Heritage stakes, with Cnooc edging out Total as Tullow's most-likely partner, a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Museveni met with Cnooc executives in Kampala last week and is expected to meet them again this week to finalize details, the person said. Cnooc and Total declined to comment.

Eni hasn't given up, however, and last week sweetened its package. The company's CEO, Paolo Scaroni, said in a newspaper interview that Eni would not only develop the Lake Albert field and build a refinery and pipeline to the Indian Ocean, but also would construct an electricity plant in Uganda and upgrade a railway line from Kampala to the Kenyan port of Mombasa. He said Eni would invest $13 billion in the "integrated development plan." Eni declined to comment for this article.

Tullow declined to comment on Eni's new offer.

What has attracted companies like Eni to Uganda is the one billion barrels of crude already discovered in the Lake Albert Rift Basin, a vast, oil-rich area close to Uganda's border with Congo to the west, and the huge untapped potential of the region. Tullow estimates that about 1.5 billion barrels, roughly the same amount as Yemen's oil reserves, remain to be discovered in the basin.

Uganda also is seen as more stable politically than many of its neighbors, though the north of the country is wracked by armed conflict between the army and a rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army, that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

Uganda plans to produce around 150,000 barrels of oil a day in four to six years, most of which will be exported. For comparison, that is slightly less than the output of Brunei. The steady revenue stream from oil could radically change the fortunes of the east African country, one of the world's poorest

October 14, 2011

Obama Sending 100 Armed Advisers to Africa to Help Fight Renegade Group

By THOM SHANKER and RICK GLADSTONE NYTimes

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday that he had ordered the deployment of 100 armed military advisers to central Africa to help regional forces combat the Lord’s Resistance Army, a notorious renegade group that has terrorized villagers in at least four countries with marauding bands that kill, rape, maim and kidnap with impunity.

The deployment represents a muscular escalation of American military efforts to help fight the Lord’s Resistance Army, which originated as a Ugandan rebel force in the 1980s and morphed into a fearsome cult-like group of fighters. It is led by Joseph Kony, a self-proclaimed prophet known for ordering village massacres, recruiting prepubescent soldiers, keeping harems of child brides and mutilating opponents.

“For more than two decades, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa,” Mr. Obama wrote in a letter to Congress announcing the military deployment. “The LRA continues to commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security.”

The decision by Mr. Obama to deploy armed military advisers into the region was welcomed by human rights advocates who have chronicled the atrocities committed by Mr. Kony and his subordinates. But it also raises the risk of putting American military personnel in harm’s way in another region of the world while the United States is winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama wrote that he had decided to act because it was “in the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.”. He also wrote that the deployment was justified by a law passed by Congress in May 2010, the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, which favored “increased, comprehensive U.S. efforts to help mitigate and eliminate the threat posed by the LRA to civilians and regional stability.”

American efforts to combat the group also took place during the Bush administration, which authorized the Pentagon to send a team of 17 counterterrorism advisers to train Ugandan troops and provided millions of dollars worth of aid, including fuel trucks, satellite phones and night vision goggles, to the Ugandan army. Those efforts scattered segments of the LRA in recent years; its remnants dispersed and regrouped in Uganda’s neighbors. In the spring of 2010, apparently desperate for new conscripts, Mr. Kony’s forces killed hundreds of villagers in the Congolese jungle and kidnapped hundreds more, according to witnesses interviewed at the time.

Unlike the earlier effort, the 100 military advisers dispatched by Mr. Obama will be armed. They will be providing assistance and advice to their African hosts, Mr. Obama said, and “will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defense.”

The initial deployment will be in Uganda, the president said, and the advisers will operate in South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo “subject to the approval of each host nation.”

A senior Pentagon official underscored that the American military personnel would not be operating independently nor carrying out unilateral operations.

The official also said the United States had provided about $33 million in support to regional efforts to battle the Lord’s Resistance Army since 2008, an effort that has not been sufficient to guarantee that local security forces dismantle the group.

One specific effort has trained a light infantry battalion of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s military, with that unit now deployed in the Dungu region of northeastern Congo where the Lord’s Resistance Army has been operating.

The Special Operations forces assigned to the new mission “bring the experience and technical capability to train, advise and assist partner security forces in support of programs designed to support internal security,” the Pentagon official said.

“Our intention is to provide the right balance of strategic and tactical experience to supplement host nation military efforts,” the official said. “Ultimately, Africans are responsible for African security, but we remain committed to our partners to enable their efforts to provide for their own security.”

Tom Malinowski, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said his group had been advocating for such a deployment. Putting more skilled advisers in the field with the armed forces of these countries would be a significant improvement over the previous level of assistance, he said. “I would not suggest that U.S. forces should be fighting the LRA themselves,” he said, but “there are lot of things they can do with this kind of deployment that they weren’t able to do previously.”

Mr. Malinowski also said the Lord’s Resistance Army probably has only a few hundred fighters, “but they are incredibly vicious and have committed numerous massacres. It’s a group that seems to exist for no other purpose than to kill.”

Thom Shanker reported from Washington, and Rick Gladstone from New York.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 14, 2011

An earlier version of this article misspelled Tom Malinowski’s surname as Malinowsky.

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