Three U.S. Air Force cargo planes and 120 U.S. troops landed in Rwanda on Saturday to transport Rwandan soldiers and equipment to Darfur as part of an expanded African Union peacekeeping mission in the violent region. Several dozen soldiers unloaded boxes full of rifles and hand guns on the tarmac of Kigali airport on the outskirts of the capital. They then loaded them with rounds of ammunition. In the first U.S. military deployment in the Darfur conflict, the three C-130 planes from the Air Force's 86th Airlift Wing left Germany on Friday. They are expected to fly a battalion of Rwandan troops to Darfur over the next two weeks. "The 120 U.S. troops are operational people providing security, airfield management and other requirements for the mission," U.S. army spokeswoman Capt. Heather Healy said. The 53-member AU agreed on Wednesday to boost its current Darfur operation by more than 3,000 extra troops. There are currently only 300 AU soldiers in Darfur tasked with protecting 150 AU observers monitoring a shaky truce between rebels and government forces.
