The lopsided numbers tell the story of the U.N.'s uphill struggle to protect civilians caught up in the latest rebel assault in conflict-wracked eastern Congo.

For months, 6,000 United Nations peacekeepers in North Kivu - a province 1 1/2 times the size of France in a country the size of Western Europe - have been trying to help ensure security for 1 million displaced people threatened by a rebel offensive.

Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda went on the offensive Aug. 28 in the eastern Congo province of North Kivu and brought his fighters to the edge of Goma, its largest city, last week before declaring a unilateral cease-fire. Tens of thousands of civilians fled the fighting and an unknown number were injured and killed.

"For two months, we prevented anything out of hand happening," the top U.N. envoy in Congo, Alan Doss, said Monday in a videoconference from Goma. "There were attacks, counterattacks, but we kept both sides more or less deteriorating into a major conflict throughout the region."

Last week, however, Nkunda's forces took control of Rutshuru, a village 55 miles north of Goma, and swept toward Goma itself as government troops retreated, looting and raping as they fled.

Doss said the U.N. force known as MONUC held positions "everywhere" and "didn't pull back."

But this time its soldiers could not protect all the civilians caught up in the fighting.

"We had counted on national forces," Doss said. "We have not had the support there that we had hoped for."

U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy echoed Doss, saying the U.N. is in eastern Congo to assist the Congolese army but its troops are overstretched and need to be reinforced. The 17,000-strong U.N. force in Congo is currently the largest U.N. peacekeeping mission but is operating in a vast area.

About 6,000 peacekeepers are deployed in 34 different places in North Kivu, where their main job is protecting displaced civilians numbering about 1 million of the province's 4 million population, said Ross Mountain, the U.N.'s humanitarian chief in Congo.

The rest of the U.N. force is deployed in three other provinces in eastern Congo where many armed groups are also operating, South Kivu, Ituri, and Orientale.

"So we're operating on four fronts," Mountain said. "It's a zero sum game. ... We certainly cannot provide a soldier behind every banana bush."

Critics say the U.N. force was unprepared for its main task of protecting civilians from the war. A growing number of civilians are furious at the U.N.'s failure to keep them safe. Last week, angry Congolese pelted rocks at all four U.N. compounds in Goma.

Erin Weir, peacekeeping advocate in Goma for Washington-based Refugees International, said recently "the U.N. Security Council handed MONUC an exceptionally complex set of tasks to accomplish but never came through with the resources or the political support to get the job done."

Asked about the criticism, Le Roy said that during his meetings with Congolese leaders and North Kivu's governor no one was critical of the U.N. force.

"Authorities on the ground recognize that without MONUC many other areas will have been taken. ... Criticism of MONUC is in many cases, I must say, unfair," he said from Goma. "It's clearly not what I've seen today. ... We are doing our utmost."

Doss said U.N. personnel faced gunfire from government and rebel troops and were often caught between the two sides. In one case, he said, a Uruguyan unit was literally caught in crossfire.

He called criticism of the U.N.'s performance "a disservice" to the men on the front lines.

"That we need to reconfigure, reinforce - we agree," Doss said. "In the light of what has happened, that the peace process has once again fallen apart in many ways, that's true."

But he said the U.N. is still trying to keep the situation from deteriorating into a major regional conflict and it needs political and diplomatic support as well as reinforcements.

Authorities said Monday they have positively identified some of Steve Fossett's remains: two large bones found a half-mile from where the adventurer's plane crashed in California's Sierra Nevada.

Madera County Sheriff John Anderson said DNA tests conducted by the state Department of Justice positively identified the bones as the remains of the millionaire aviator who disappeared last year.

Anderson has declined to say what bones were found, saying he didn't want to cause the family further anguish.

Fossett's widow, Peggy Fossett, released a statement thanking authorities for their work.

"I am hopeful that the DNA identification puts a definitive end to all of the speculation surrounding Steve's death. This has been an incredibly difficult time for me, and I am thankful to everyone who helped bring closure to this tragedy," she said.

The bones were discovered last week, along with Fossett's tennis shoes and Illinois driver's license, which had animal bite marks on them.

Fossett disappeared in September 2007 after taking off from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton for what was supposed to be a short pleasure flight. Law enforcement, fellow aviators and others launched a costly search that covered 20,000 square miles but turned up empty.

The wreckage of Fossett's plane was discovered last month after a hiker walking off trail in the Sierra Nevada near Mammoth Lakes stumbled across Fossett's pilot's license and a wad of weathered $100 bills. Authorities said Fossett likely died on impact.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.

Barack Obama told millions watching him accept the Democratic nomination in Denver that his grandmother's influence on who he is and the way he views the world was substantial.

"She's the one who taught me about hard work," he said in August. "She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me."

On Monday, it was tributes that were pouring in for Madelyn Payne Dunham, who died from cancer only a few days before seeing her grandson perhaps become the nation's first black president. She was 86.

"She's gone home," Obama said as tens of thousands of rowdy supporters at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte grew silent in an evening drizzle. "And she died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side. And so there is great joy as well as tears."

Those who knew Dunham described her as a calm, assured and directed woman who was instrumental in shaping Obama. He lived with her and his grandfather in their modest two-bedroom apartment from 1971 until 1979 - the same apartment where she died late Sunday.

The family is planning a small, private ceremony.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat, said in an interview that Dunham "died as she lived. She was a woman of strength, great character, a solid anchor in that family."

Dunham, who took university classes but never earned a degree, nonetheless rose from a secretarial job at the Bank of Hawaii to become one of the state's first female bank vice presidents.

"Every morning, she woke up at 5 a.m. and changed from the frowsy muumuus she wore around the apartment into a tailored suit and high-heeled pumps," Obama wrote in his memoir "Dreams from My Father."

He has often mentioned "Toot" - his version of the Hawaiian word "tutu," or grandparent - as an example of a strong woman succeeding through intelligence and determination. Many of his speeches describe her working on a bomber assembly line during World War II.

The Kansas-born Dunham and her husband, Stanley, raised their grandson for several years in Honolulu while their daughter and her second husband lived overseas.

Obama learned of Dunham's death while he was campaigning in Jacksonville, Fla.

"So many of us were hoping and praying that his grandmother would have the opportunity to witness her grandson become our next president," said Hawaii state Rep. Marcus Oshiro, an Obama supporter. "What a bittersweet victory it will be for him."

Republican John McCain issued condolences. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to them as they remember and celebrate the life of someone who had such a profound impact in their lives," the statement by John and Cindy McCain said.

Last month, Obama took a break from campaigning and flew to Hawaii to be with Dunham as her health declined. She was the last of his relatives who had a hand in shepherding a would-be president.

When Obama was young, he and his grandmother toured the United States by Greyhound bus, stopping at the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, Disneyland and Chicago, where Obama would years later settle.

It was an incident during his teenage years that became one of Obama's most vivid memories of his grandmother. She had been aggressively panhandled by a man and, for safety's sake, she wanted her husband to take her to work. When Obama asked why, his grandfather said she was bothered because the panhandler was black.

The words hit the biracial Obama "like a fist in my stomach," he wrote later. He was sure his grandparents loved him deeply. "And yet," he added, "I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fears."

Obama referred to the incident again when he addressed race in a speech in March during a controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother," he said.

At the Honolulu Senior Citizens Club on Monday, three of Dunham's fellow bridge players lamented her passing. "She was a lovely lady," said Alice Young, 84, who last saw Dunham about two years ago.

Nahid Mabid, 78, said Dunham would accept no assistance when they last played together two years ago, even though she was confined to a wheelchair. "She would say she could manage herself. She didn't want help from anyone."

--

Associated Press writers Audrey McAvoy and Mark Niesse contributed to this report.