Joseph Kony: US Offers \$5m Bounty For Warlord

The US has offered a \$5m (£3.3m) reward for information leading to the arrest, transfer or conviction of fugitive warlord Joseph Kony and three of his top lieutenants.

The Lord's Resistance Army chief, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, has been on the run in the jungles of Central Africa.

Kony and his guerrillas are accused of terrorising northern Uganda for 20 years - abducting children to use as fighters and sex slaves, and hacking off victims' limbs as a method of intimidation and revenge.

His name was added to the US State Department's war crimes rewards programme, along with fellow LRA members Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen, and Sylvestre Mudacumura from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.

Global Criminal Justice Ambassador Stephen Rapp said the LRA was "one of the world's most brutal armed groups".

"We act today so that there can be justice for the innocent men, women and children, who've been subjected to mass murder, amputation, enslavement and other atrocities," he said.

Kony came to prominence for many last year after the charity Invisible Children created a 30-minute online documentary that went viral on YouTube

The viral video was labelled "simplistic" by critics who said it failed to explain the complexity of the region's long-standing conflicts, but the film drew widespread attention and sparked a social media campaign calling for the warlord's capture.

The UN says about 450,000 people have been displaced by LRA attacks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda and South Sudan.

The LRA has also now turned to ivory trafficking and extended its area of operations, a UN Security Council meeting was told in December.

Although the number of LRA attacks was down last year, there were some assaults as far west as Bangassou in Central African Republic, where scores of men, women and children were abducted in September.

US President Barack Obama last year authorised a mission by 100 US special forces to help Ugandan troops scour the African jungles for Kony.

But the Ugandan army said on Wednesday it has suspended the hunt after rebels seized control of the Central African Republic last month.