President Obama ordered an increased presence of U.S. Special Operations forces in Africa to search for warlord Joseph Kony, the Washington Post reported.
At least four CV-22 Osprey aircrafts will be in Uganda this week, accompanied 150 Air Force Special Operations forces, according to Amanda Dory, deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs.
Obama notified members of Congress of the deployments on Sunday night, according to the Post. U.S. authorities are allowed to "provide information, advice and assistance" to the African Union military as they search for Kony and his group -- the Lord's Resistance Army -- in Uganda, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Congo.
Though U.S. military personnel are armed, they are prohibited from fighting with LRA forces unless it's in self-defense.
Kony, whose has been indicted by the International Criminal Court, has attacked villages throughout Central Africa for years with his army. While he is responsible for a long list of gruesome crimes, his attacks have reportedly decreased since 2010 according to Grant Harris, a special assistant to Obama and senior African affairs director for the National Security Council.
Grant said that three of the LRA's five commanders were "removed...from the battlefield" since May 2012, citing "credible reporting" that claimed second-in-command Okot Odhiambo was killed late last year.
Two years ago, Invisible Children -- an organization created to spread awareness about the LRA -- released a documentary called "Kony 2012," profiling the African warlord and the terror his army inflicted upon villages throughout African nations.
Though the organization had been around for years, the video immediately went viral, resulting in a Senate resolution and the decision of the African Union to send more troops.
