(Somethine else for you to think about while everyone is focused on the war crimes in Iraq.)

A preliminary UN investigation has found that at least 966 men, women and children were killed in dawn raids on more than a dozen villages in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo last week, officials said yesterday.

The investigators also discovered about 20 mass graves and found that many of the victims had been executed in the attacks on Thursday, the worst atrocity investigated by the UN in the four and a half years of civil war in Congo, said Manodje Mounoubai, a spokesman for the UN mission.

It is not clear who carried out the attacks, which lasted for
between five and eight hours in the Roman Catholic parish of Drodro and 14 surrounding villages in the mineral-rich Ituri province. But witnesses told the investigators some attackers wore military uniforms while others were dressed in civilians clothes, Mr Mounoubai said.

Mr Mounoubai said from the capital, Kinshasa: "The attack started with a whistle blast and lasted between five and eight hours, This is the worst single atrocity since the start of the civil war."

UN military observers visited the areas on Saturday where the killings happened and spoke to witnesses, survivors and local leaders, Mr Mounoubai said.

Ituri has been beset by some of the most vicious fighting of the war as rival tribal fighters, rebel factions and Ugandan troops fight over land and resources. On Saturday, Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese rebel leader, accused Ugandan troops and allied Congolese tribal fighters of carrying out the slaughter. Mr Lubanga, who is head of the rebel Union of Congolese Patriots, or UPC, said Ugandan troops and Lendu tribal fighters had used mortars, small arms and machetes to attack three towns in Ituri, killing 942 people.

Captain Felix Kulayigye, a Ugandan military spokesman, denied any Ugandan troops were involved in the massacre. Captain Kulayigye, who is based in Ituri, said at the weekend that about 400 people had been killed in tribal fighting. An aid worker and a tribal leader in Bunia, however, said that Ugandan forces were in the area when the civilians were killed. They could not say whether the troops took part.

Witnesses told the investigators that some of the assailants were speaking Kilendu, the Lendu tribal language, while others spoke Kiswahili, the lingua franca in eastern Congo, Mr Mounoubai said. Most Ugandan soldiers also speak Kiswahili.

The UPC draws its support from the Hema tribe, which has traditionally fought with the Lendu for control of land and other resources in the region.

The UPC and Ugandan troops have been fighting since Ugandan forces drove the rebels from Bunia, the main town in the province, four weeks ago. Thursday's attack is the latest in a long line of atrocities in the province.

On 15 January, UN investigators confirmed that rebels of the Congolese Liberation Movement and the Congolese Rally for Democracy-National had carried out cannibalism, rape, torture and killing in the province late last year.

And on 1 March, Mr Lubanga accused another rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement, of killing at least 400 civilians when it pushed UPC forces out of Bogoro, 40km south-west of Bunia on 24 and 25 February.

The latest war in Congo broke out in August 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda sent troops to support rebels who were seeking to oust the president at the time, Laurent Kabila. They accused him of backing insurgents threatening regional security.

Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia sent troops to back Kabila, splitting the country into rebel and government-held areas. Most foreign troops withdrew after a series of peace deals took hold, but fighting among rival rebel factions, tribal fighters and Ugandan troops has continued in eastern and north-eastern Congo.

Uganda had backed the UPC, but relations have soured in recent months after rebels demanded the withdrawal of Ugandan troops. The UPC is now backed by Rwanda. Since the war began, the Congolese rebels have split into more than a dozen factions. Uganda, which has more than 2,500 troops in Ituri, and Rwanda, back rival groups in a conflict that is costing thousands of lives. (AP)