Rwanda says Congo government launching attacks

GOMA, Congo (Reuters) -- The Congolese government and its allies have launched a new wave of attacks against rebels and their Rwandan backers all along their vast frontline, Rwandan officials said on Wednesday.

The news comes on the second anniversary of the start of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and underlines that a peace accord signed last year has all but collapsed.

"Definitely there has been an increase in attacks all over the place," Rwandan presidential envoy Patrick Mazimhaka told Reuters by telephone from the Rwandan capital Kigali.

"There is fighting, there are infiltrations, there is shelling. It's an organized offensive. The whole front has been reactivated."

The rebels, who control the northern and eastern regions of the huge country, are backed by Rwanda and Uganda, while the government army is supported by troops from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia.

Mazimhaka said fighting along the southern front -- mostly controlled by Rwandan forces and quiet for many months -- was concentrated along a sector stretching north from the government-held diamond trading center of Mbuji-Mayi in Kasai province.

He said there had been at least 20 attacks in Kasai on rebel and Rwandan positions since June and Rwandan troops were returning fire.

Mazimhaka said clashes had also increased behind the frontlines in the eastern province of North Kivu, where Rwanda says hordes of pro-government militiamen are being supplied by Congolese President Laurent Kabila.

The civil war began in the eastern city of Goma on August 2, 1998. A peace accord was signed by all the main warring parties in the Zambian capital Lusaka last year but has failed to stop the fighting.

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