KAMPALA — Ugandan officials are renewing a claim made with some frequency over the years: That rebel leader Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army are receiving backing from the government of Sudan.

Ugandan forces commander Gen. Aronda Nyakairima said Monday he found credible a recent report from a captured LRA fighter saying that Kony was recently in the southern region of Sudan.

Col. Felix Kulayigye, the military's spokesman, said some of the LRA rebels captured by the Ugandan military wore "new uniforms" supplied by Sudan, though Nyakairima said military officials have not found LRA fighters with weapons supplied by Sudan.

President Barack Obama sent 100 U.S. forces into Central Africa last year to help regional militaries track Kony, and an online campaign this year by the advocacy group Invisible Children made Kony a YouTube sensation.

"Kony has always been a pawn in the Khartoum chess game over South Sudan. They have used him before and they hope to use him again to destabilize South Sudan," Kulayigye said.

Abdulla Ali Masar, Sudan's information minister, denied his government has ever supported the LRA.