At least 23 villagers in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo have been killed in attacks blamed on rebels linked to the Islamic State (IS) group, monitors said on Tuesday.”The ADF are suspected of having committed” the massacre on Monday in the villages of Lintumbe, Kisanga and Matuna in Ituri province, said the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), an NGO which monitors violence in the region.Local activist Christophe Munyanderu gave the same toll, adding that some of the dead had been murdered out in the fields.The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) is one of more than 100 armed groups that are active in eastern Congo, many of them a legacy of regional wars fought in the 1990s after the fall of long-time dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.The IS claims the ADF as its central African affiliate. Originally a Muslim-majority coalition of armed Ugandan groups, it is one of the deadliest militias in the region, accused of slaughtering thousands of civilians. The DR Congo launched joint military operations with Uganda against the ADF in November 2021, but rebel attacks have continued.
