Kony film breathes life into hunt For years, Joseph Kony has taken the remnants of his Lord's Resistance Army around the borderlands of four countries, hiding in thick forest in an area the size of California. Despite a 2005 charge of war crimes from the International Criminal Court, he has evaded repeated attempts at capture and reneged on several peace deals. When last week a film by the campaign group Invisible Children went viral, attracting more than 76m viewings (and counting) on YouTube and the support of a host of celebrities, it breathed life into the hunt for Mr Kony, whose forces are notorious for abducting children and forcing them to fight, as well as hacking off the lips and noses of their victims. But on the ground there are other signs the pressure is growing. Uganda's chief of defence forces on Tuesday flew to Kinshasa to meet his counterpart in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said Colonel Felix Kulayigye, a spokesman for the Ugandan army. "We discuss our mutual security concerns," Col Kulayigye told the Financial Times, adding that Ugandan troops left Congolese soil last year. As long as he [ Mr Kony] is a security threat in the region, then if the Congolese are not capable [of capturing him] then I'm sure the issue of building capacity will be part of the agenda. For us the LRA coming back to Uganda is out of the question. A senior military official in Kinshasa added: "We are waiting for the chief of the Ugandan army. He will come here to do a big meeting with Congo about how to track the LRA troops. Last year, President Barack Obama committed 100 military advisers to the region where Mr Kony operates. The soldiers - known as "Obama's Boys" - are stationed at operating bases in Uganda, the Central African Republic, the DRC and South Sudan. "He's able to elude capture largely because he's exploiting the borders among these four nations," said US Rear Admiral Brian Losey. Military efforts work in tandem with a propaganda campaign to persuade his remaining followers to defect. When one of Mr Kony's many wives saw a smiling photograph of another wife who had escaped his clutches, she decided to flee. "That for her proved that people aren't killed when they surrender as Kony told her, but rather are given assistance," Matthew Brubacher, a UN official in the DRC, told the Financial Times. The leaflet she saw was another Invisible Children initiative. Published in three local languages, they feature photos and drawings of LRA members escaping and being reunited with their families. Mr Kony's forces total about 200, down from 2,000 at their peak. But he is far from being a spent force. Last year, he mounted 278 attacks. There have been 20 new attacks in the DRC alone this year. The warlord's capture has long been complicated by regional rivalries. Kinshasa wants $23.5bn in reparations for a Ugandan army campaign within its borders in the early 2000s. It has long denied Uganda access to parts of its territory and has even accused the Ugandan army of carrying out LRA raids and belittled the LRA threat. Activists have pleaded with Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, to "cease politicising the LRA story." "We feel that our own governments have abandoned and forgotten us, and it only discourages us further when we hear statements from our elected leaders that the LRA is no longer a threat," regional campaigners said in a letter late last year to Mr Kabila. There is no doubt that Invisible Children and their film, Kony 2012, have succeeded in bringing the horrors of the LRA's activities to the attention of millions who had never heard of it. But many have since criticised the video - which urges viewers to "go out, and rock it" in an effort to make the rebel warlord a household name - for shoring up a stereotypical view of helpless Africans in need of western help. That help is needed, argues one activist. "The LRA doesn't pose a threat to the central governments [of the region], so getting rid of the LRA hasn't been a top priority," says Ida Sawyer, a Human Rights Watch Congo researcher who has investigated a series of LRA massacres. The region's governments "are incapable of capturing him on their own." The hope is that the presence of US forces, allied to domestic and international pressure, may turn regional enmities around. Obama's Boys may not kill or capture Mr Kony themselves but their assistance is widely acknowledged as critical, while other donations have funded radio towers and stations to intelligence sharing and logistical support. "What we think about where Joseph Kony is not as important as where [the four armies] think he is," said Karl Wycoff, deputy assistant secretary for African Affairs at the US State Department, last month. The four countries in the region have agreed to look at this together; that's already success.