control large areas of Masisi and Rutshuru and expand north and east toward the border with Uganda. Newly formed national brigades were ordered to establish territorial control, which Nkunda took to mean fighting the Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) descended from the groups that carried out the Rwandan genocide. In late March 2007, Numbi left Goma in what the International Crisis Group sees as an attempt to distance himself from a disaster in the making, as accusations mounted that the CNDP was in effect setting up a small kingdom in Masisi. In late April, the military stopped the creation of the sixth brigade scheduled to be under Nkunda. The mixed brigades carried out offensives against the FDLR from mid-April to mid-May but, despite the claims of the CNDP, did poorly as they had little logistical support and the FDLR fought well. The military demanded that the CNDP soldiers undergo brassage, mixage having failed, and three months of standoff ensued as relations between soldiers loyal to Nkunda and loyalist troops grew increasingly tense. Matters reached a breaking point when the army chief of staff declared that the offensive against the FDLR would be halted. After an international outcry, he reversed himself but stated that only units that had undergone brassage would be allowed to fight, apparently in the belief that the all-Tutsi CNDP units were more likely to be indiscriminately violent towards the mostly Hutu population of the FDLR heartland. On 28 August 2007, soldiers loyal to Nkunda ambushed pro-Kinshasa soldiers of the Bravo brigade in Rubare. Within days the CNDP-government violence had vastly escalated and the government was carrying out full-scale offensives against the CNDP by 6 September. Kiwandja massacre The CNDP under the command of Col. Sultani Makenga was accused of massacring 67 civilians in 2008 in the town of Kiwandja in North Kivu. The head of the UN Human Rights Commission, Navi Pillay, accused Makenga of committing war crimes. Splintering of the CNDP In early January 2009, Bosco Ntaganda, a commander in the CNDP and former chief of military operations of the Union of Congolese Patriots, declared that he was taking leadership from Nkunda. On January 16, he appeared at a joint press conference with Congolese Minister of the Interior and Security Célestin Mbuyu Kabangu, the Inspector General of the Police General John Numbi, Rwanda's Chief of Defence Staff General James Kabarebe, and other