The group’s 30-minute video, which was released Monday, had more than 21 million views on YouTube by Thursday. The movie is part of an effort called KONY 2012 that targets Kony and the LRA.

“Kony is a monster. He deserves to be prosecuted and hanged,” said Col. Felix Kulayigye, the spokesman for Uganda’s military.

But Kulayigye said that Kony’s forces — once thousands strong — have been so degraded that he no longer considers him a threat to the region. Because of the intensified hunt for Kony, his forces split into smaller groups that can travel the jungle more easily. Experts estimate that the LRA now has only about 250 fighters. Still, the militia abducts children, forcing them to serve as soldiers or sex slaves, and even to kill their parents or each other to survive.

Uganda, Invisible Children and (hash)stopkony were among the top 10 trending terms on Twitter among both the worldwide and U.S. audience on Wednesday night, ranking higher than New iPad or Peyton Manning. Twitter’s top trends more commonly include celebrities than fugitive militants.

Ben Keesey, Invisible Children’s 28-year-old chief executive officer, said the viral success shows their message resonates and that viewers feel empowered to force change. It was released on the website, www.kony2012.com.

“The core message is just to show that there are few times where problems are black and white. There’s lots of complicated stuff in the world, but Joseph Kony and what he’s doing is black and white,” Keesey said Wednesday.

The burst of attention has also brought with it some criticism of Invisible Children’s work on Internet sites, including the ratio of the group’s spending on direct aid, its rating by the site Charity Navigator, and a 2008 photo of three Invisible Children members holding guns alongside troops from the country now known as South Sudan.

Invisible Children posted rebuttals to the criticism on its website.

Kony’s Ugandan rebel group is blamed for tens of thousands of mutilations and killings over the last 26 years.

Last year, Invisible Children began installing high frequency radios in Africa’s remotest jungle to help track militia attacks in Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan. People in areas without phones can report attacks on the radios to people who put them on a website called the LRA Crisis Tracker.

Invisible Children’s efforts to recruit support from U.S. political leaders appears to have paid off. Last year the State Department called the group’s Crisis Tracker “a really innovative tool” for information sharing. A U.S. military spokesman said the U.S. military is also aware of the Crisis Tracker.

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Straziuso reported from Nairobi, Kenya. Associated Press reporter Elliot Spagat contributed from San Diego.

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On the Internet:

http://www.stopkony2012.com

Invisible Children’s reaction to blog accusations: http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html

The group’s 30-minute video, which was released Monday, had more than 21 million views on YouTube by Thursday. The movie is part of an effort called KONY 2012 that targets Kony and the LRA.

“Kony is a monster. He deserves to be prosecuted and hanged,” said Col. Felix Kulayigye, the spokesman for Uganda’s military.

But Kulayigye said that Kony’s forces — once thousands strong — have been so degraded that he no longer considers him a threat to the region. Because of the intensified hunt for Kony, his forces split into smaller groups that can travel the jungle more easily. Experts estimate that the LRA now has only about 250 fighters. Still, the militia abducts children, forcing them to serve as soldiers or sex slaves, and even to kill their parents or each other to survive.

Uganda, Invisible Children and (hash)stopkony were among the top 10 trending terms on Twitter among both the worldwide and U.S. audience on Wednesday night, ranking higher than New iPad or Peyton Manning. Twitter’s top trends more commonly include celebrities than fugitive militants.

Ben Keesey, Invisible Children’s 28-year-old chief executive officer, said the viral success shows their message resonates and that viewers feel empowered to force change. It was released on the website, www.kony2012.com.

“The core message is just to show that there are few times where problems are black and white. There’s lots of complicated stuff in the world, but Joseph Kony and what he’s doing is black and white,” Keesey said Wednesday.

The burst of attention has also brought with it some criticism of Invisible Children’s work on Internet sites, including the ratio of the group’s spending on direct aid, its rating by the site Charity Navigator, and a 2008 photo of three Invisible Children members holding guns alongside troops from the country now known as South Sudan.

Invisible Children posted rebuttals to the criticism on its website.

Kony’s Ugandan rebel group is blamed for tens of thousands of mutilations and killings over the last 26 years.

Last year, Invisible Children began installing high frequency radios in Africa’s remotest jungle to help track militia attacks in Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan. People in areas without phones can report attacks on the radios to people who put them on a website called the LRA Crisis Tracker.

Invisible Children’s efforts to recruit support from U.S. political leaders appears to have paid off. Last year the State Department called the group’s Crisis Tracker “a really innovative tool” for information sharing. A U.S. military spokesman said the U.S. military is also aware of the Crisis Tracker.

___

Straziuso reported from Nairobi, Kenya. Associated Press reporter Elliot Spagat contributed from San Diego.

___

On the Internet:

http://www.stopkony2012.com

Invisible Children’s reaction to blog accusations: http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html

“When we were there we heard an Antonov (plane) above us,” he said. “Women and children started running and going into the nooks and caves of a mountain, a small hill rather. … We saw a burned-out village. As we left the border there was burned place after burned place after burned place. There was hardly a person to be seen.”

Kapila said the Nuba Mountains region is facing an oncoming hunger crisis because the region’s residents haven’t been working the fields for fear of overhead attack by military planes.

Sudan has refused to let aid agencies into the region. The U.N., the U.S. and other world governments and groups have condemned the attacks that are taking place against civilians.

In New York, meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday called for an end to cross-border violence between Sudan and South Sudan.

The council urged both countries to implement a Feb. 10 nonaggression and cooperation pact which they signed following African Union-led talks by a panel led by South Africa’s former president, Thabo Mbeki.

The council said it deeply deplored the continued failure of Sudanese and South Sudanese security forces to redeploy from the disputed oil-rich border region of Abyei in accordance with a June 20 agreement.

It demanded that the two countries immediately establish an administration for the region “and work actively toward a long-term political resolution of Abyei’s final status.”

On the Nuba Mountains region, Kapila said that hunger would peak between May and October of this year.

“Because of the scorched-earth policy of the Khartoum bombing, farmers can’t be out in the field. They spend more energy trying to hide. They can spend the good amount of their day in the caves,” he said. “Probably no more than 10 to 15 percent of the normal harvest of the Nuba Mountains is expected to be brought in this year.”

He added: “We are at the threshold of considerable hunger.”

An open letter to President Barack Obama printed earlier this month and co-written by a genocide scholar at the University of Arkansas — Samuel Totten — and signed by many others, said the Khartoum government has targeted the people of the Nuba Mountains before — in the late 19802 and 1990s. Many there starved during the period, the letter said.

The government of Sudan has claimed it is targeting a military group in the region — the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army-North. But Totten’s letter said that photographic evidence has proven that the bombings are indiscriminate.

“We beseech you and your administration to place pressure on the United Nations to act now to open a humanitarian corridor in order to provide humanitarian aid to those in the Nuba Mountains,” Totten’s letter said.

Kapila noted that Sudan President Omar al-Bashir is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court for killings and rapes committed in Darfur. He said war crimes are also taking place in Nuba.

“Darfur was the first genocide of the 21st century,” he said. “And the second genocide of the 21st century may very well be taking place now, in the Nuba Mountains.”

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AP writer Edith M. Lederer contributed to this story from the United Nations in New York.

“My daughter, who was 5 at the time, became fascinated by it and used to love spending time watching it and helping us look after it,” Davenport told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “We called it Matilda’s Viper at that stage … and then the name stuck.”

Only three new vipers have been discovered across Africa the last three decades, making the find rare and important. The Wildlife Conservation Society is not revealing exactly where the snake lives so that trophy hunters can’t hunt it.

Davenport said he is not sure how many live in the wild because snake counts are hard to do. Twelve live in captivity and a breeding plan is being carried out.

Davenport, a Briton who has lived in Tanzania for 12 years, said that while many people fear snakes, most are harmless and help keep rodent numbers down. Matilda’s horned viper can grow to 2 feet (65 centimeters) or bigger, he said.

“This particular animal looks fierce and probably is venomous (though bush viper bites are not fatal),” Davenport told AP via an Internet chat. “However, it is actually very calm animal and not at all aggressive. I have handled one on a number of occasions.”

The Wildlife Conservation Society runs the Bronx Zoo and the Central Park Zoo in New York, and Davenport said it would be a “great option” to showcase the new horned viper at one of those locations, but that nothing has yet been decided.

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On the Internet:

http://www.atherismatildae.org

“My daughter, who was 5 at the time, became fascinated by it and used to love spending time watching it and helping us look after it,” Davenport told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “We called it Matilda’s Viper at that stage … and then the name stuck.”

Only three new vipers have been discovered across Africa the last three decades, making the find rare and important. The Wildlife Conservation Society is not revealing exactly where the snake lives so that trophy hunters can’t hunt it.

Davenport said he is not sure how many live in the wild because snake counts are hard to do. Twelve live in captivity and a breeding plan is being carried out.

Davenport, a Briton who has lived in Tanzania for 12 years, said that while many people fear snakes, most are harmless and help keep rodent numbers down. Matilda’s horned viper can grow to 2 feet (65 centimeters) or bigger, he said.

“This particular animal looks fierce and probably is venomous (though bush viper bites are not fatal),” Davenport told AP via an Internet chat. “However, it is actually very calm animal and not at all aggressive. I have handled one on a number of occasions.”

The Wildlife Conservation Society runs the Bronx Zoo and the Central Park Zoo in New York, and Davenport said it would be a “great option” to showcase the new horned viper at one of those locations, but that nothing has yet been decided.

___

On the Internet:

http://www.atherismatildae.org