Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo said it would provide logistical support to a military operation aimed at disarming Rwandan Hutu militias in the east of the country.

“Medical and logistical support is secured,” military spokesman for the mission, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, said in a phone interview today from Kinshasa, the capital. “We are exploring further participation in the operations.”

Congolese and Rwandan soldiers began a joint operation last week to hunt members of the ethnic Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, whose leaders fled across the border after participating in the 1994 genocide against Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Fighters of the Tutsi-led rebel National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP, and the Resistance of Congolese Patriots, a rival pro-government militia known as Pareco, will join the operations by the end of the month, Dietrich said.

The CNDP was formed five years ago by a group of soldiers who broke away from the national army, saying they wanted to protect the region’s ethnic Tutsi minority from the Hutu militia.

The CNDP’s leader, Laurent Nkunda, was arrested last week in Rwanda. His detention was part of a deal that enabled the Rwandan deployment in Congo’s North Kivu province, according to Jason Stearns, an independent Congo analyst who formerly worked for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

Collaboration

The CNDP, now led by military chief General Jean-Bosco Ntaganda, on Jan. 16 announced its fighters would join the army to flush out the FDLR.

A ceremony will be held later today to mark the CNDP and Pareco’s formal integration into the Congolese army.

While it will support the operation logistically, Monuc will not attend today’s ceremony, where Bosco, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, will be present, Dietrich said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Franz Wild in Rutshuru, Congo, via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 28, 2009 03:10 EST