A Bloody Message To Washington

As Ugandan and Rwandan soldiers hunted Wednesday for the Rwandan rebels who hacked to death eight foreign tourists, a team of American FBI agents arrived in Uganda to launch an investigation into the abduction and subsequent murders.

More than 14 tourists were snatched Monday by some 200 Hutu rebels in what was described as a well-planned operation, reports CBS News Correspondent John Roberts. One group of rebels staged a raid on a nearby town to distract Ugandan forces, while another 100 went after the tourists.

Two Americans, four Britons, and two New Zealanders were killed Monday after the Congo-based Hutu rebels raided several tourist camps in a bid to undermine Rwanda's Tutsi-led government and its ally, Uganda.

At least six other tourists escaped, but three were still missing. Their nationalities were not known.

There were new details Wednesday as to why some were freed and others killed; the rebels were moving quickly and heavily, carrying their own wounded. The six who survived were at the front of the group. The eight who died were executed when they couldn't keep up.

A Ugandan commander said soldiers tracked the rebels to a base in Congo's Virunga National Park on Tuesday, killing some of the rebels as they scattered. Ugandan and Rwandan soldiers joined forces Wednesday to hunt down the killers.

Though Ugandan police initially said the tourists were killed in the crossfire of an army rescue attempt, Uganda's deputy chief of military intelligence, Noble Mayombo, on Wednesday acknowledged it was a mistake.

Meanwhile, written messages left on the mutilated bodies of the victims were an ugly warning in a place of breathtaking beauty: "Americans and British, we don't want you on our land. You support our enemy."

Mark Ross, an American-born tour operator and pilot who was among the survivors, said in Kampala that the rebels rounded up tourists from several camps and marched them through the jungle. He saw five bodies, their heads crushed and bodies deeply slashed, with no signs of gunshot wounds.

A U.S. embassy official in Kampala said an FBI team had arrived in the area to investigate how the tourists were abducted and killed. The official could not say how many agents were involved in the investigation.

The two dead Americans were Rob Haubner, 48, and his wife, Susan Miller, 42. Haubner's company, Oregon-based Intel Corp., said they were on their third trip to Africa.

Ugandan officials said three tourists, all men, were still missing.

The tourists were abducted at campgrounds on the edge of Bwindi National Park, known as the Impenetrable Forest, the starting point for visitors hoping to glimpse the 320 mountain gorillas that remain along the border mountain's slopes.

The rebels are Hutu fighters who fled Rwanda after killing more than 500,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus in the 1994 genocide there. They are angry at Uganda fosupporting the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan government, and have been carrying out cross-border raids from bases in eastern Congo, often ambushing vehicles and kidnapping or killing passengers.