* Brigade blamed is controlled by ex-rebels

* Rights group says army killed more than 500 civilians

* Congo army takes aim at new armed movement in north

(Recasts, adds HRW statement and detail on army deployment)

By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA, Nov 2 (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Monday it would cut support for some units of Congo's armed forces amid allegations that the U.N.-backed soldiers had killed, raped and mutilated hundreds of civilians.

A U.N. force has been helping President Joseph Kabila's troops against Rwandan rebels in eastern Congo despite complaints from rights groups about abuses. It said the cut in support would not effect anti-rebel operations as a whole.

"According to our information, these civilians were clearly targeted in attacks by certain units of the (army)," U.N. peacekeeping chief Alan Le Roy told U.N.-sponsored Radio Okapi, referring to the deaths of at least 62 civilians between May and September.

"We have decided that (the U.N. peacekeeping mission) MONUC will immediately suspend its logistical and operational support to the army units implicated in these killings," Le Roy said.

Le Roy named the units as being part of the 213th brigade of the Congolese army. A U.N. source said the brigade was controlled by one of nearly two dozen rebel groups and militias brought into the army under a January peace deal aimed at bolstering its ability to take on the FDLR Rwandan rebels.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday government forces had killed at least 500 civilians since March, and called on the United Nations to suspend support entirely.

DECAPITATIONS

"Most of the victims were women, children, and the elderly. Some were decapitated. Others were chopped to death by machete, beaten to death with clubs, or shot as they tried to flee," HRW said in a press release.

"MONUC's continued willingness to provide support for such abusive military operations implicates them in violations of the laws of war," Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher at HRW, said in the statement.

The U.N.'s suspension of support for some Congo army units comes as the vast Central African nation deploys additional units to a new uprising in the northern frontier region where some 47 police were killed last week. [ID:L2440323]

Congo's Information Minister Lambert Mende said the U.N. move could destabilize the army. "We are surprised that the United Nations has announced sanctions against these units even before the conclusion of their investigation," he said.

The government of Congo has been struggling to reestablish control over the country since a 1998-2003 war and accompanying humanitarian disaster that have killed 5.4 million people.

Congo launched operations against the FDLR, some of whose members participated in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, in March as part of efforts to heal ties with former enemy Rwanda.

Humanitarian agencies have heavily criticised the offensive, which has disarmed over 1,200 FDLR fighters. More than 7,000 women and girls have been raped during the operation and more than 900,000 people forced to flee their homes.

Last month Philip Alston, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, announced that army units had massacred at least 50 Rwandan civilian refugees in the South Kivu village of Shalio and gang-raped dozens of women in April. (Reporting by Joe Bavier; editing by Richard Valdmanis)

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