Operation Observant Compass was a

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

operation initially focused on apprehending

Joseph Kony Joseph Rao Kony (likely born 1961) is a Ugandan militant who founded the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Christian fundamentalist organization, designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Peacekeepers, the European Union and various ...

and the

Lord's Resistance Army The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), also known as the Lord's Resistance Movement, is a rebel group and heterodox Christian group which operates in northern Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Co ...

in Central Africa. It was overseen by

United States Africa Command The United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM, U.S. AFRICOM, and AFRICOM), is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the United States Department of Defense, headquartered at Kelley Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany. It is responsible for U. ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

News wrote in March 2017 that "The area of operations is the size of

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, with about 80 military personnel and several dozen support personnel tasked with finding around 150 fighters with Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, operating across portions of four countries in some of the world's most inaccessible terrain." In 2017, with around $780 million spent on the operation, and Kony still in the field, the United States wound down Observant Compass and shifted its forces elsewhere. But the operation didn't completely disband, according to the Defense Department: “U.S. military forces supporting Operation Observant Compass transitioned to broader scope security and stability activities that continue the success of our African partners."{{Cite journal, last=Demmers, first=Jolle, last2=Gould, first2=Lauren, date=2018-10-01, title=An assemblage approach to liquid warfare: AFRICOM and the 'hunt' for Joseph Kony, journal=Security Dialogue, language=en, volume=49, issue=5, pages=364–381, doi=10.1177/0967010618777890, issn=0967-0106, pmc=6168742, pmid=30333686

References

Observant Compass Military of Uganda Military history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo