Rwandan President Kagame Paul has promoted Maj Gen Innocent Kabandana to the rank of Lieutenant General.
Gen Kabandana has been in war-torn Mozambican Province, Cabo Delgado. He was a coordinator of the Rwandan troops activities to fight terrorism.
He was this year replaced by Gen Eugene Nkubito.
Kabandana was the commander of RDF Special Forces before heading to Mozambique where he spent a year hunting down terrorists.
Alert, tough, polite, and diplomatic, are some of the words that could best describe Lt Gen Innocent Kabandana.
The former Commandant of Rwanda Military Academy, together with Mozambique’s Maj Gen Cristóvão Artur Chume, joint force commander of the Mozambique Armed Defence Forces (FADM), orchestrated the purging of terrorists from nearly 90 percent of the Province of Cabo Delgado, in the last 30 days.
Barely a month after his deployment in Mozambique’s northern most Province, the strategic port city of Mocimboa da Praia which was the headquarters of the terrorists was captured as the terrorists fled.
Rwandan and Mozambican troops on August 8 captured Mocimboa da Praia, a city that had been the headquarters of the Islamic State-linked terrorist group since 2015.
Kabandana, a former Rwandan special forces Commander is a no-nonsense soldier who holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Oklahoma Christian University, USA.
Kabandana is one of those senior Rwandan officers who joined the military in 1990 and rose through the ranks to his current level.
He played a part in Rwanda’s liberation struggle, from 1990 to 1994 and is among the combatants that stopped the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
By and large, Kabandana cuts the poise of an efficient, direct, and quite tough commander who will get the job done. Among others, he has combat, command, staff training and peacekeeping experience at tactical and operational levels. In the past, he also served as Defence Attache’ to the Embassy of Rwanda, Washington DC.
His other previous key appointments include being a Brigade staff officer in charge of Civil Military Affairs, Chief Instructor at Rwanda Military Academy in Gako, and Deputy Chief Military Personnel Officer in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan UNMISS Sudan.
He was also once the Chairman of the Military Tender Board: Chief of Logistics, RDF HQ; Commandant of Rwanda Military Academy and Director of Rwanda Peace Academy.
