While Kabila was completing his rebellion, the ALIR remnants reformed and recruited new Hutu fighters from eastern Zaire. ALIR became active again in eastern Zaire by early 1997. The ALiR's political wing, the Party for the Liberation of Rwanda (PALIR), maintained the old goal of overthrowing the Kagame government and regaining power, to which it added the objective of expelling the foreign invaders, thereby giving it more appeal to local populations. There were also concerns that it intended to continue the genocide against the Tutsis. Even before regaining a military presence, a letter allegedly sent by the ALiR threatened to kill the Americanambassador to Rwanda and other U.S. citizens in retaliation for support to Rwanda.
By July 1998, the alliance between Kabila and his Rwandan and Ugandan sponsors had broken down. Kabila ordered the foreign forces out of the country, prompting Rwanda and Uganda to create another rebel group, the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), to overthrow Kabila in the Second Congo War. Kabila then began to provide military support to ALiR, many members of which he had tried to kill less than two years previously, in order to weaken the RCD and foreign military forces in eastern Congo.
As the war grew into the most deadly conflict since the Second World War, several thousand ALiR fighters carried out guerrilla attacks behind the front lines. In 1999, eight tourists from the U.S., United Kingdom and New Zealand and a Ugandan game warden were killed while in Uganda's Bwindi National Park, along the border with the DRC. The tourists were tracking rare mountain gorillas and were apparently targeted as English language speakers. One captured French diplomat was released with a message condemning the U.S. and UK for their support of the RPF-led regime in Rwanda. The violent attack largely destroyed Uganda's tourist industry for years.
For the next several years, the battle lines stabilized and the war stagnated as Uganda and Rwanda competed to extract resources from the rich mines and forests of eastern Congo that they occupied. The ALiR continued to carry out attacks upon both opposing armed groups, as well as civilian populations that they thought supported their enemies. Following Kabila's assassination on 18 January 2001 and the rise of his son Joseph, the ALiR consolidated forces with a Kinshasa-based Hutu group to form the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). While never officially disbanded, ALiR lost its separate identity under the FDLR. Despite official declarations from the FDLR that they have given up armed resistance, ALiR remnants continued to fight in eastern Congo.
Further reading
Gérard Prunier, From Genocide to Continental War: The "Congolese" Conflict and the Crisis of Contemporary Africa, C. Hurst & Co, 2009, ISBN1-85065-523-5