James Akena / Reuters

Caesar Achellam, center, is a close ally of rebel leader Joseph Kony and had masterminded the Lord's Resistance Army's relocation from northern Uganda, analysts say.

RIVER VOVODO, Central African Republic -- Uganda has captured one of the top five members of the Lord's Resistance Army, bringing it a step closer to catching Joseph Kony, the notorious rebel leader accused of war crimes, the military said on Sunday.

The Ugandan army said it caught Caesar Achellam, a major general in Kony's outfit of about 200 fighters, in an ambush along the banks of the River Mbou in Central African Republic (CAR) on Saturday.

Achellam was armed with just an AK-47 rifle and eight rounds of ammunition, a spokesman for the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF), said. He was being held with his wife, a young daughter and a helper.

Ugandan army Lt. Col. Abdul Rugumayo told The Associated Press that Achellam was in a group of about 30 LRA rebels. The others escaped.

NYT: In vast jungle, US troops aid hunt for Kony

Although Achellam is not one of the LRA commanders indicted along with Kony in 2005 by the International Criminal Court, Ugandan officials say he was Kony's top military strategist.

The UPDF, which has a force hunting for Kony full-time in the jungles of CAR, backed by U.S. troops, said the capture of Achellam would encourage other fighters to abandon the LRA.

"The arrest of Major General Caesar Achellam is big progress because he is a big fish," said UPDF spokesman Felix Kulaigye. "His capture is definitely going to cause an opinion shift within the LRA."

In 'Kony' town, video is hardly a sensation

Achellam, who was paraded before media, walked with a limp, which he attributed to an old wound. He was returning from the Democratic Republic of Congo when he walked into the soldiers' ambush. UPDF said it had been on his trail for a month.

'Very troubling for Kony'
Analysts said Achellam was a close ally of Kony and had masterminded the group's relocation from northern Uganda.

"From whichever angle you look at it, the loss of Achellam should be very troubling for Kony and a big boost for his manhunt," said Angelo Izama, an analyst who has written extensively on the LRA.

Sequel to 'Kony 2012' video released

Kony, a self-styled mystic leader who at one time wanted to rule Uganda according to the biblical Ten Commandments, fled northern Uganda in 2005, roaming first the lawless expanses of South Sudan, then the isolated northeastern tip of Congo.

In December 2008, Uganda launched Operation Lightning Thunder against the LRA, dispersing the rebels and pushing them north into CAR.

Sex slaves
The rebels live in the jungles of CAR surviving on wild yams, stolen cattle and drinking from rivers.

Kony is accused of abducting children to use as fighters and sex slaves and is said to have a fondness for hacking off limbs.

A 30-minute YouTube video by California-based film-maker Jason Russell calling for the arrest of Kony swept across the Internet in March, attracting tens of millions of views, bringing the LRA's atrocities to the attention of many people previously unaware of the group's existence.

How the 'Kony 2012' video went viral

The Ugandan government, the African Union and the United States all stepped up their commitment to the hunt for Kony in the wake of the outrage caused by the video, "Kony 2012".

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Rodney Muhumuza / AP

For Ugandan soldiers tasked with catching Joseph Kony, the real threat is not the elusive Central Africa warlord and his brutal gang. Encounters between Ugandan troops and Lord's Resistance Army rebels are so rare that the Kony hunters worry about other things when they walk the jungle: Armed poachers, wild beasts and honey bees.

OBO, Central African Republic - In a bare concrete room in a far-flung corner of Central African Republic, U.S. special forces and Ugandan soldiers map out the hunt for one of Africa's most wanted rebel leaders hiding in an area the size of California.

The building belonged to the town of Obo's doctor until he was murdered last year by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) while transporting medicines by road. Now it serves as an operational center in one of America's latest military ventures in Africa.

The mission is clear.

"(The) focus is the removal of Joseph Kony and senior Lord's Resistance Army leadership from the battlefield," said Captain Ken Wright, a navy SEAL in command of the roughly 100-strong force which deployed in October.

Africa24 Media / Reuters

Lord Resistance Army's Major General Joseph Kony poses at peace negotiations between the LRA and Ugandan religious and cultural leaders in Ri-Kwangba, in southern Sudan, in November 2008.

Kony has evaded capture for nearly three decades, kidnapping tens of thousands of children to fill his militia's ranks and serve as sex slaves as he moves through the bush. Thousands more have died in the wake of his brutal army.

The deployment of elite American forces to help track Kony and his senior commanders in the dense equatorial jungle across a region that spans several countries has raised hopes the sadistic warlord's days are numbered.

The troops are armed but do not patrol the surrounding forests and are allowed to engage the LRA only in self-defense.

Instead, their focus is on improving intelligence on LRA positions gathered both electronically and from tips.

By meshing stories from hunters and nomadic cattle herders of encounters with the rebels together with sophisticated surveillance imagery, allied forces chart suspected rebel activity and coordinate the regional armies' pursuit of Kony.

"You look at patterns to see where LRA might be moving, historic areas where they might operate, so we can predict where they're going and try and head them off and most effectively use the forces on the ground," Captain Gregory, a 29-year-old Texan hidden behind sunglasses and a wide brimmed hat told Reuters.

For many of the U.S. troops who have recently served in Afghanistan and Iraq, the humid jungles of central Africa are unfamiliar territory.

Their deployment raised expectations locally that U.S. drones would be unearthing Kony. They are not, and this hostile environment is throwing up unforeseen challenges.

"Some of the gear we have here is affected by the vegetation ... and acts differently from in the desert. Vegetation absorbs signals and sounds," Gregory said.

International bad guy
Kony, a self-styled mystic leader who at one time was bent on ruling Uganda by the Ten Commandments, fled his native northern Uganda in 2005, roaming first the lawless expanses of South Sudan and then the isolated northeastern tip of Congo.

In December 2008, after last-ditch peace talks failed, Ugandan paratroopers and fighter jets struck the LRA's Congo hideouts. Kony slipped through the net, raising suspicions he had been tipped off. He and many of his combatants moved north into the Central African Republic.

Kony was thrust back into the spotlight earlier this year when a video, "Kony 2012," highlighting the chilling mutilations, rapes and murders carried out by his spell-bound fighters went viral on the Internet.

Bruce Wharton, deputy assistant secretary in the Department of State's Africa bureau said the deployment of special forces was in part a response to legislation in 2010 calling on the Obama administration to do more to tackle Kony.

"I think Kony, for lack of an ideology, for lack of a political agenda, for lack of an intellectually identifiable cause, and for the brutality with which he operates, is at the top of the list of international bad guys," Wharton said.

Asked whether hunting Kony offered a convenient way of expanding the U.S. military footprint in Africa, Wharton told Reuters: "I absolutely think that as soon as this mission is accomplished the roughly 100 troops will go away."

Facing war crimes charges, Kony has transformed himself from a one-time altar boy to a master of jungle survival and evasion. His fighters have become increasingly savvy in concealing their movements, wading through crocodile-infested rivers and walking backwards and in loops to disguise their tracks.

The vicious and often drugged rebels first struck Obo in the early hours of March 6, 2009. They targeted the town's Catholic mission, abducting 76 people.

"We were told they were coming but we didn't believe they would attack the town," said Obo resident Ricardo Dimanche who runs a community radio project urging LRA fighters to give up their weapons.

"The next year they started attacking the small villages around us. Displaced people started flooding in," said Dimanche.

Underscoring the challenge facing the American and regional troops, the LRA launched almost as many attacks in the first three months of this year in CAR as in all of last year, according to U.N. data.

"Nobody has peace of mind now," said Dimanche.

U.S. military officials are reluctant to bet on if and when they might snare Kony.

"The global effort to try to find Osama bin Laden took 10 years with an extraordinary level of effort ... the highest priority for the international intelligence community, and it still took 10 years to find him," General Carter Ham, commander of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) told a media briefing in Germany ahead of the tightly controlled trip.

"So this is a tough mission."

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James Akena / Reuters

Ugandans from Lira watch the premiere of "Kony 2012," a 30-minute YouTube film created by the nonprofit Invisible Children. Lira was one of the areas that was ravaged by 20 years of Joseph Kony's rebellion.

Invisible Children delayed the release of a sequel to the viral video "KONY 2012" from Tuesday to Thursday, according to the organization's Twitter account.

It was originally supposed to air on April 3, but for an unknown reason the group has pushed the release date back to April 5.

Calling it “everything we couldn’t fit into KONY 2012,” Invisible Children will once again inform audiences about the use of children soldiers in the Lord’s Revolution Army in Uganda.

The video about LRA leader Joseph Kony has been viewed more than 86 million times since it originally debuted on YouTube nearly one month ago.

Read the original story at NBCSanDiego.com

The organization’s founders and CEO went on a media blitz promoting the documentary, and depended heavily on social media to increase viewership.

But Invisible Children also came under scrutiny for the “KONY 2012” film, with many calling it an oversimplification of the complex LRA conflict in Uganda.

Stuart Price / AFP / Getty Images

Joseph Kony, former leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, answered journalists' questions at Ri-Kwamba, in Southern Sudan, in 2006. Although the Kony 2012 was much critiqued by people who found it dated and overly simplistic, a former child soldier said he supported the video.

A group of human rights activists gathered outside the headquarters of the nonprofit on March 30, calling attention to issues they claim were omitted from the documentary.

Invisible Children CEO Ben Keesey released a series of video responses to the criticism, and later created a page dedicated to the widespread critiques.

The group has been trying to get back on its feet after an unusual turn of events when Invisible Children co-founder and filmmaker Jason Russell suffered a brief reactive psychosis. Russell was discovered by police in Pacific Beach on March 15 in various stages of undress and behaving in a bizarre manner.

Russell was detained and taken to a hospital. It could be months before he can return to Invisible Children, according to his wife Danica.

Brendan Mcdermid / REUTERS

Jason Russell co-founded the non-profit Invisible Children and directed "Kony 2012," a video that has 86 million views on YouTube.

Invisible Children volunteers and workers made little to no public appearances following the incident and the new video will be the group’s first major push since Russell’s hospitalization.

The new video will also include an update on its “Cover the Night” event on April 20 and will air on the Invisible Children YouTube page on Thursday.

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Thousands of villagers have abandoned their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo to escape the notorious Lord's Resistance Army, the Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday.

The villagers left everything and walked some 30 miles in the dead of night after an attack by Joseph Kony’s ruthless rebel army last month, the paper reported on its website.

The displaced people remain fearful of returning home and remain in Dungu, a provincial hub in the northern part of the DRC, which now faces a growing humanitarian crisis.

The LRA, and its leader, gained worldwide exposure recently because of the “Kony 2012” video release by a U.S. group known as Invisible Children. The video has been viewed on the YouTube social video site nearly 87 million times.

LRA fighters have committed massacres, mutilations and mass rapes and kidnapped children and forced them into slavery, the Guardian reported.

A Guardian reporter visited Dungu, where cell phone reception is spotty and access to the Internet is limited, and found little evidence anyone there has heard of the video. However, the reporter did find people fearful of the LRA.

“People have been terrorized, seriously traumatized, by repeated attacks by the LRA and the violence and mutilation they have suffered,” Jorge Holly, head of the United Nations’ refugee agency in the region, told the Guardian.

Invisible Children has come under scrutiny for the “Kony 2012” video, with many calling it an oversimplification of the complex LRA conflict in Uganda. The group said it planned to release a a sequel video on Tuesday detailing the use of children soldiers in the LRA in Uganda.

The group has been trying to recovery after co-founder and filmmaker Jason Russell suffered a brief reactive psychosis, NBCSanDiego.com reported. Russell was discovered by police on March 15 in various stages of undress and behaving in a bizarre manner.

Russell was detained and taken to a hospital. It could be months before he can return to Invisible Children, according to his wife Danica.

NBCSanDiego.com contributed to this report.

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GULU, Uganda – Young Jacob Acaye’s declaration that he would rather die than continue to lead his life in fear has broken the hearts of the tens of millions of people around the world who have watched “KONY 2012,” an Internet advocacy documentary about the misdeeds of a Ugandan warlord.

But about nine years later – and just a week or so after the video became an online sensation – one of the most talked-about people of current days is a picture of anonymity.

In his hometown in northern Uganda, the 21-year-old seemed relaxed, and perhaps a little reserved, as he wandered down the street where he used to huddle under blankets along with up to 800 other children for protection from advancing rebels.

I stood with him, gazing down a busy sidewalk waiting for someone to catch his eye – to question him, to thank him or to embrace him. There's nothing.

We had traveled to Gulu to assess reaction to the 30-minute video, which has become one of the most successful online campaigns of all time. As of this writing, it’s up to 78 million views on YouTube.

But tweets, status updates and trending topics mean very little here. In downtown Gulu, it has pretty much missed many of those people who have been most affected by the bloodshed.

/

Ugandans watch the premiere of "Kony 2012," a 30-minute YouTube film created by the nonprofit group Invisible Children, in Lira district, an area 234 miles north of Uganda's capital Kampala on Tuesday.

Western campaign
It shouldn’t be a surprise. With access to the Internet limited, very few people here have seen the “Invisible Children” campaigners’ call to make Joseph Kony famous, a move they hoped would, in turn, make him infamous.

After all, he is already despised in these parts:  His face and his name are known by everyone and have haunted this place for decades. It seems that everyone can name one of his victims – someone who was slaughtered, orphaned or abducted by his army of thugs.

Why make Kony famous? Video rubs some raw Ugandan scars 

In fact, many people in Gulu are far from excited by the campaign; they have heard it discussed on local radio and feel that it has its heart far from the dusty roads of rural Uganda. This is a campaign by Westerners, “the white men,” said one resident.

What divides opinion is whether that really matters. To Jacob it doesn’t, he would welcome attention from anyone, anywhere. To many others it feels like a patronizing challenge to national pride. “KONY 2012” doesn’t really feel like their campaign.

In Gulu, there are memorials to a series of massacres, the most recent in 2004. But while the legacy of fear created by a generation of violence certainly endures, in many ways this place has moved on. Confidence has grown with peace.

Moving on
Sitting around making small-talk, a group of men asked me to join them. Their conversation is about Kony, as often seems to be the case. Fueled by bravado and, perhaps, a little beer, they said it would be impossible for the warlord to return. They spoke of him only in the past tense, despite rumors that he was in the area over Christmas for a brief visit.

“We don’t expect anything. We don’t expect him anymore in the country,” said one man, who is convinced that Kony is in hiding in the Central African Republic or South Sudan.

In other parts of the town, some told me that there is no need for a campaign at all, as Kony’s men have moved on. Others don't want to hear his name. “Why re-open these wounds?” one man asked me once he learned of my reason for being in Gulu.

Some fear that too much talk of Kony might bring him back and risk their community's relative calm. Others worry that their homeland is being characterized around the world purely as a place of terror – “Konyland” as one aid worker described it.

Most of all, they wonder why the world has suddenly started to worry about them now? It’s not necessarily that they don’t welcome the attention, but many cannot subscribe to the newfound enthusiasm of the campaign’s supporters abroad. They have long tired of asking for attention and being ignored.

Acaye, however, is as passionate as when he was as a boy and believes that the video is important and valuable.

“Kony has not yet stopped killing young ones,” he said. “Kony has not yet stopped abducting people. Kony has not yet stopped forcing young girls into sex slaves.

“And that is what we are fighting for. We want it stopped.”

The State Department on Thursday dismissed any suggestion that the United States might pull its advisers out of Uganda, a prospect raised by the “KONY 2012” video generating millions of views on the Internet.

That viral video details the atrocities carried out by Josephy Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, and is part of a marketing campaign by the advocacy group Invisible Children to raise awareness about the issue. The jungle militia leader is wanted for atrocities by the International Criminal Court and is being hunted by troops in four Central African countries. Last year, the U.S. sent nearly 100 Special Forces troops to Uganda to train military forces there in an attempt to stop Kony.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Thursday applauded the effort to “shine a light on the horrible atrocities of the LRA.”

"Hundreds of -- and thousands of people around the world, especially the young people, have been mobilized to express concern for the communities in central Africa that have been placed under siege by the LRA,” Nuland said during a daily press briefing. “So the degree to which this YouTube video helps to increase awareness and increase support for the work that governments are doing, including our own government -- that can only help all of us."

How did 'KONY 2012' video spread so fast? Oprah

Nuland said U.S. is "very much involved" in supporting Uganda and its neighboring states with the Special Forces advisers, who are armed and combat-equipped but only for self-defense. “They've only been in for a couple of months, and we consider them a very important augmentation for our effort to help the East and Central African countries with this problem," she said.

The U.S. troops are armed and combat-equipped, bu their mission is as field trainers, although the military has said they will fight back if attacked.

Although there no plans to remove advisers, the mission is not an open-ended commitment, according to one senior defense official. So, while there is no specific timeline for how long American forces will be there, the U.S. constantly reassesses the situation and its effectiveness, that official said.

Since 2008, the U.S. has spent approximately $500 million helping to strengthen the Ugandan Army in its battle against the LRA.

The Lord's Resistance Army has an estimated 150 to 200 core fighters, with another 600 to 1,000 other supporters or affiliated members throughout central Africa. It arose in Uganda in the 1980s in response to alleged brutality against the Acholi people, but since has been blamed for thousands of mutilations and killings over the last 26 years. The militia abducts children, forcing them to serve as soldiers or sex slaves, and even to kill their parents or each other to survive.

Read more on the issue:

The Guardian: Kony 2012: what's the real story

Foreign Policy: Guest post: Joseph Kony is not in Uganda (and other complicated things)

Many Ugandans frustrated, suspicious with Kony 2012

NBC News' Courtney Kube and Jim Miklaszewski contributed to this report, as did The Associated Press.

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A charity whose tactics have been criticized is making traction online with a video, "KONY 2012," that aims to bring down the leader of a cult-like rebel army in Africa.

The 30-minute documentary, which has had more than 7 million YouTube downloads, was made by Invisible Children, a charity that wants Joseph Kony, head of the Lord's Resistance Army, to face trial in an international court on charges of using children as soldiers and other human rights crimes in Uganda.

A recent Foreign Affairs report challenged the tactics used by the charity and several others, saying they had exaggerated the scale of Kony's crimes.

The blog Visible Children, written by a Canadian college student, also questioned the value of Invisible Children's emphasis on filmmaking and social media advocacy and pointed out that it was advocating for western military intervention in Africa.

Jedediah Jenkins, the charity's director of idea development, told the Washington Post that the criticism was "myopic" and that the film reflected a "tipping point" by getting young Americans to care about an issue in Africa.

"The film has reached a place in the global consciousness where people know who Kony is, they know his crimes," Jenkins added. "Kids know and they respond. And then they won’t allow it to happen anymore."

Invisible Children also posted a response to the criticisms here.

On Tuesday, the UN refugee agency said the Lord's Resistance Army had launched a new spate of attacks in the northeastern region Democratic Republic of Congo this year after a lull in the second half of 2011.

But Mounoubai Madnodje, a spokesman for the UN's Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said the LRA was on its last legs.

"We think right now it's the last gasp of a dying organization that's still trying to make a statement," he said. Madnodje said there are only about 200 LRA fighters left. 

But experts on the LRA were skeptical about writing off Kony's force too soon. Mareike Schomerus at the London School of Economics said small scale attacks did not necessarily mean the LRA was getting weaker.

"It doesn't tell us anything because it's the same thing they have been doing for the last 25 years," she said.

The LRA, which emerged in northern Uganda in the late 1990s, is believed to have killed, kidnapped and mutilated thousands of people. Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court and the African Union, which has designated it as a terrorist group.

In October the United States sent 100 military personnel, mainly special forces, to train and advise the forces fighting against the LRA.

This article includes reporting by msnbc.com staff and Reuters.

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