UPDATE 2-Congo forces kill 26 Islamist rebels in Ebola zone shootout

* Islamist ADF blamed for attacks around Congo's Beni
* Islamic State claims attack against Congolese forces
* Armed groups hampering Ebola response

(Adds Islamic State claim of attack)
By Fiston Mahamba
GOMA, Congo, May 30 (Reuters) - Congolese forces killed 26
rebels from a group thought to be linked to Islamic State on
Thursday in a shootout in the country's eastern Ebola zone, the
army said.
The clash took place in a village near the city of Beni, an
area where more than a dozen different militia groups and
associated armed gangs operate, and the epicentre of Democratic
Republic of Congo's worst ever Ebola epidemic.
The army's spokesman for east Congo, General Leon-Richard
Kasonga, said the insurgents from the Allied Democratic Forces
(ADF) attacked an army position in Ngite village and that
soldiers returned fire and pursued them.
"Twenty six rebels were neutralised by the army, and their
bodies recovered," he told journalists in Goma.
The ADF has never claimed allegiance to Islamic State, but
witnesses said the Congolese group carried out an attack last
month in nearby Bovata that IS claimed. Islamic State said on Thursday its 'Central Africa Province'
had inflicted "dozens of casualties" on Congolese forces,
according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online
jihadist activity.
Its fighters had attacked three army barracks near Mavivi,
which lies next to Ngite, and "returned safely to their
positions," it said.
There was no independent confirmation of the claims.
The ADF, originally a Ugandan Salafist-inspired extremist
group, has been operating along the Congo/Uganda border for more
than two decades. Rival armed factions remain active in pockets
of east Congo long after the official end of a 1998-2003 war in
which millions of people died, mostly from hunger and disease.
Insecurity around Beni is also undermining efforts to
contain the Ebola epidemic, which has killed close to 1,300
people since August. Militiamen attacked a hospital in the
nearby city of Butembo last month and killed a Cameroonian
doctor working for the World Health Organization (WHO).