M23 fighters in eastern Congo, near Rwanda, have been targeted in an offensive spearheaded by the UN
The
M23 rebel group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has said it
will stop fighting, following days of clashes with UN-backed forces.
M23 official Museveni Sendugo told the BBC its forces had already pulled back 5km (three miles) from the frontline.Rebel leader Bertrand Bisimwa said the pull-back would allow an independent investigation into how shells fell over the border in Rwanda on Thursday.
The Congolese army denies Rwandan accusations it fired the shells.
DR Congo and the UN accuse Rwanda of backing the M23, a charge it denies.
Their troops have been pounding rebel positions on the Congolese side of the border with Rwanda near the city of Goma since last week.
UN helicopters have attacked rebels in a joint operation with Congolese government troops
As tension escalated on Thursday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appealed to Rwanda's president for restraint.
Rwanda twice invaded its much larger neighbour during the 1990s, and the border area has been unstable for two decades.Rwanda's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, Olivier Nduhungirehe, told the BBC's Focus on Africa that "a red line was crossed" by DR Congo on Thursday when he said a Rwandan woman was killed in cross-border shelling.
The M23 rebels, he said, were an "internal problem" within DR Congo, and the Congolese government "should not drag Rwanda" into the dispute.
He denied allegations by the Congolese information minister that 300 Rwandan troops had been fighting alongside the M23 rebels.
Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo on Friday tweeted: "Rwandan troops are not in DRC (yet), when they are, you will know."
A newspaper close to Rwanda's government has published photographs showing a military build-up near the border with DR Congo.
Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende told the BBC's Newsday programme that M23 rebels were firing onto Rwandan territory "to give Rwanda a pretext for coming in openly in this war".
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Troublesome neighbours
- April-June 1994: Hutu militias commit genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda
- June 1994: Paul Kagame's Tutsi rebels take power in Rwanda, Hutus flee into Zaire (DR Congo)
- Rwanda's army enters eastern Zaire to pursue Hutu fighters
- 1997: Laurent Kabila's AFDL, backed by Rwanda, takes power in Kinshasa
- 1998: Rwanda accuses Kabila of not acting against Hutu rebels and tries to topple him, sparking five years of conflict
- 2003: War officially ends but Hutu and Tutsi militias continue to clash in eastern DR Congo
- 2008: Tutsi-led CNDP rebels march on North Kivu capital, Goma - 250,000 people flee
- 2009: Rwanda and DR Congo agree peace deal and CNDP integrated into Congolese army
- 2012: Mutiny led by former CNDP fighters, now known as M23
The UN peacekeeping mission in DR
Congo, Monusco, recently deployed a new 3,000-strong intervention
brigade to tackle the rebels.
'Cannot be tolerated'Ms Mushikiwabo on Thursday said that 23 "bombs and rockets" had been fired into Rwanda this week.
She accused DR Congo forces of targeting Rwandan civilians, and said: "We have remained restrained for as long as we can but this provocation can no longer be tolerated."
BBC Great Lakes service editor Ally Yusuf Mugenzi says that even when Rwanda invaded Congolese territory, it never made such strong accusations against the Congolese army.
Congolese army spokesman Col Olivier Hamuli told the BBC that his forces would never fire at civilian populations.
"That could only be rebels," he said, adding that M23 fighters, and not soldiers, were in the area from which the shells were fired.
This was backed up by Mr Ban's assistant, Edmond Mulet, who told the UN Security Council on Thursday that UN forces in the DR Congo had witnessed M23 rebels firing artillery into Rwanda but not the Congolese army, diplomats said.
Mr Mulet ended the session by informing members that Mr Ban had telephoned Rwandan President Paul Kagame to urge restraint.
The UN has boosted its peacekeeping force with a special brigade to disarm rebels
source : BBC
