Brigadier Peter Elwelu who commanded the November raid on Rwenzururu king Mumbere palace has been promoted to Major General in the new army reshuffle. He will move to Mbarara where he has been serving as second Division commander to take charge of Land Forces.
Described as “ battle-hardened soldier “, Maj. Gen. Elwelu, led the first contingent of Ugandan troops—Battle Group One (UGABAG1), which landed under a hail of fire in Mogadishu on March 6, 2007—under auspices of the US/European Union funded African Union Mission to Somalia (Amisom). Prior to the Somalia mission, he had been in operation in northern Uganda during the LRA insurgency.
Before the full scale deployment, in 2005 he was among the select group of officers alongside (now) Gen Kale Kayihura, and Brig Dick Olum (current 3rd Division commanding officer) whom President Museveni quietly dispatched to Baidoa, capital of Somalia’s southwestern Bay region, to study the security and political situation.
He returned from Somalia in December 2008, and was deployed as 3rd Division UPDF commander in the Eastern/Karamoja region that was tasked to disarm marauding warriors and cattle rustlers through thick and thin.
From there in June 2013, he was tapped as commander of the Western-Uganda based 2nd Division taking over from Col. Fred Rugadya Akiiki, the deputy division commander, charged with shielding the area from any potential ADF threat.
In the wake of hostilities between security forces and King Mumbere, the UPDF launched an operation code-named “Usalama Rwenzori (Peace in Rwenzori) in the districts of Kasese, Kabarole, Ntoroko and Bundibugyo to contain the situation.