Former President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has officially allied himself with armed rebel groups, raising fears of a further escalation of the ongoing conflict in the east of the country which has already left thousands dead.
Kabila launched a new political-military coalition on Monday to replace the M23-AFC alliance, which is fighting government forces and controlling large swaths of territory.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 elementsend of list
The new movement will “end tyranny by any means necessary, including the use of force,” said coalition spokesman Claude Ibalanky, in what appears to be a chilling threat to the Kinshasa government.
This comes precisely a year after Kabila was sentenced to death by a military court for his alleged links to rebel groups.
The M23 crisis has shaken the mineral-rich east of the DRC for almost 15 years. The United Nations says more than 7.8 million people are displaced while 28 million face food shortages. Countless numbers of people died.
The United States and the UN accuse Rwanda of supporting the M23. Kigali denies.
Here’s what we know:
What was announced?
Kabila presented the new alliance, the Front for the Refoundation of the Nation (FRN), from his residence in Goma, confirming the DRC government’s accusations.
The former president said he would lead the alliance.
Corneille Nangaa, a Kabila ally who served as election commissioner before leaving the government to launch the Congo River Alliance (AFC), will serve as deputy, alongside Bertrand Bisimwa, spokesperson for the M23.
Freddy Kaniki, M23’s doctor and senior health official, will serve as secretary general, while M23’s Sultani Makenga will be the alliance’s military leader.
Who is Kabila?
Kabila, 55, is the son of former president Laurent Kabila.
He took office at the age of 29 in 2001 after the assassination of his father. He previously served as army chief and fought in Congo’s two civil wars, when Rwanda supported rebel groups against longtime Congolese leader Mobutu Sese Seko.
Kabila’s term, which officially ended in 2016, was marked by rights violations and corruption. He illegally delayed the election until 2018, citing voter registration problems, and left office in 2019.
Before resigning, Kabila reportedly signed a power-sharing agreement with opposition candidate and election winner, current President Félix Tshisekedi. Kabila’s allies were initially installed in the cabinet after the deal, but in 2020 Tshisekedi began removing them, as their truce collapsed on a bitter note.
Tshisekedi’s government also launched corruption investigations against Kabila, forcing him into voluntary exile in South Africa in 2023.
Why did Kabila join the rebel alliance?
The former president’s latest move is not surprising; Kinshasa has long claimed its links with the M23-AFC alliance.
Amid intensifying M23-AFC offensives last year, Kabila wrote a scathing opinion piece in South Africa’s Sunday Times, accusing Tshisekedi of mismanaging the conflict and proposing a “12-point plan” to restore peace. There were also reports of Kabila being seen in rebel-held Goma in the east of the country, where he owns homes.
Last October, a military court in Kinshasa sentenced Kabila to death for treason, war crimes and other major offenses for alleged collaboration with Rwanda and the M23-AFC.
In April, Washington imposed sanctions on Kabila, alleging he was funding rebel groups.
What does the M23-AFC want?
Eastern DRC has been mired in violence for more than 30 years and several groups are fighting to dominate the region. The roots of the crisis go back to the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda, the alleged harboring of groups of Hutu fighters in the DRC following that genocide, Kigali’s determination to fight them and deep-rooted tribalism.
The March 23 Movement (M23) was born in 2012 from the remnants of groups of Congolese Tutsi fighters who fought in the Second Congo War. He claims to fight for the rights of the Congolese Tutsi minority and seeks to overthrow the government in Kinshasa.
The M23 first took Goma and other eastern towns in 2012 offensives; however, its fighters were pushed back by a special UN force fighting alongside the FARDC – the Congolese army.
In 2022, amid Tshisekedi’s fallout with Kabila, the M23 resurfaced with renewed strength, allegedly supported by more than 4,000 Rwandan troops. Kigali has long accused successive governments in Kinshasa of supporting the armed group of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), based in the DRC, which includes Hutu genocidaires.
In 2023, as the M23 captured several towns and the Congolese army retreated, Nangaa, then election commissioner, also fell out with Tshisekedi – apparently over his decision to run in the elections. He then went into exile, formed the AFC and allied himself with the M23 as its political arm.
In early 2024, the AFC-M23 launched blitzkrieg offensives that allowed it to sweep across large swaths of the east, quickly seizing territory. Goma fell again to the AFC-M23 in January 2025, following heavy fighting that killed nearly 3,000 civilians.
The rebels, accused of massacres of civilians, currently control North and South Kivu, where Kabila is from, as well as their capitals Goma and Bukavu, as well as border posts with Rwanda and Uganda. Kampala has also been accused of supporting the M23.
What does this mean for the conflict?
Al Jazeera’s Alain Uaykani reported that the Congolese fear a further escalation of the conflict and that a number of soldiers could defect to serve their former boss.
There are also fears that ongoing peace talks will fail. In June 2025, the DRC and Rwanda signed a US-led peace agreement.
In a separate process brokered by Qatar, the DRC and M23-AFC also signed the Doha Framework last November and were due to meet this month.
But the changes may not end the DRC-Rwanda agreements, as Kigali will likely want to continue US-led talks, Bram Verelst of the Institute for Security Studies told Al Jazeera.
The real threat, he warned, lies in the Doha process.
“We will likely see a hardening of Kinshasa’s stance towards the rebel movement and Kabila, including efforts to isolate Kabila and the FRN regionally,” Verelst noted.
“What this means for the conflict on the ground will depend on Kabila’s ability to take control of the rebellion and build and expand alliances beyond North and South Kivu,” he added.
Gn world
