A Congolese army tank prepares to deploy for fighting against M23 rebels near the eastern city of Goma on August 23, 2013.
The Congolese army has captured strategic hills overlooking the city of Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo after M23 rebels pulled out from the area.
"They did not leave by choice, they were confronted with the power of the army," Congolese spokesman Lt. Colonel Olivier Hamuli said on Friday.
The Congolese army, backed by new United Nations intervention brigade, has been shelling M23 rebels near Goma for some days to drive them back.
The Intervention Brigade has been given a stronger mandate by the UN Security Council to launch offensive operations against armed groups in eastern Congo.
"We won!" the army soldiers chanted in Kibati, until Thursday a rebel outpost on the frontline overlooking Goma.
The M23 rebels, who have been fighting against the army since April last year, said they withdrew from the Kibati hills to allow an independent probe into shelling that has killed several civilians in Goma and in the town of Gisenyi in neighboring Rwanda.
On Thursday, Rwanda accused the Congolese army, the FARDC, of shelling into its territory and said such "provocation" will not be tolerated, raising fears that Congo’s adventurous neighbor might launch a military offensive against a country with which it fought two wars in the past two decades.
However, the UN mission in Congo, known as MONUSCO, said late on Thursday that it had seen only M23 rebels firing artillery into Rwanda.
"MONUSCO has not witnessed any shelling by the FARDC into Rwanda. These are areas where FARDC are not present," said deputy UN peacekeeping chief Edmond Mulet.
The M23 rebels defected from the Congolese army in April 2012 in protest over alleged mistreatment in the army.
The M23 rebels and several other armed groups are active in the eastern Congo and are fighting for control of the country’s vast mineral resources, such as gold, the main tin ore cassiterite, and coltan (columbite-tantalite), which is used to make many electronic devices, including cell phones.
Since early May 2012, nearly three million people have fled their homes in the eastern Congo. About 2.5 million have resettled in Congo, but about 500,000 have crossed into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.
Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on since 1998 and left over 5.5 million people dead.
GJH/MHB
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