Trump ally, Israeli advisers helped train Congo forces to secure strategic town — sources

Blackwater founder Erik Prince deployed a private security force trained by Israelis to operate drones and help the Democratic Republic of Congo’s army secure the strategic city of Uvira against Rwanda-backed rebels, four people briefed on the mission say.

The AFC/M23 rebels briefly seized the city on the border with Burundi in December in a major blow to ongoing US- and Qatar-backed peace negotiations. They withdrew after Washington threatened to retaliate.

Prince, a supporter of US President Donald Trump who founded the now-defunct private security firm Blackwater, had been hired by the government in Kinshasa to help secure and improve tax revenue collection from Congo’s vast mineral reserves.

However, the operation to help elite forces recapture Uvira from AFC/M23 rebels is the first known involvement of Prince’s private security forces on the frontline in Congo, widening his role in the decades-long conflict.

A spokesperson for Prince declines to comment. The Congolese presidency and a local army spokesperson do not respond to queries.

Prince’s contractors operated in coordination with Israeli advisers who were involved in training two Congolese special forces battalions on day and night operations, according to a fifth source briefed on the operation.

“Their [the Israelis’] mandate is training only,” one of them says, without elaborating further on why the Israelis joined the operation.

The Israeli embassy in the Angolan capital of Luanda, which covers Congo, and the Israeli Foreign Ministry do not respond to requests for comment.