The African Union says it will send 5,000 soldiers to join the hunt for notorious rebel leader Joseph Kony, a new mission that comes amid a wildly popular Internet campaign targeting the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army.

The mission is to be launched in South Sudan on Saturday and will last until Kony is caught, United Nations and African Union officials said at a news conference in Uganda.

"We need to stop Kony with hardware – with military hardware in this case," said Francisco Madeira, the African Union's special envoy on the LRA, on Friday. "We are on a mission to stop him."

Friday's announcement comes the same month an Internet movie campaign by the U.S.-based advocacy group Invisible Children sought to make Kony "famous" so that policymakers would make it a priority to remove him. The video has been viewed more than 100 million times.

Abou Moussa, head of the U.N.'s office in Central Africa, said soaring international interest in Kony had spurred regional efforts to eliminate the LRA.

"The awareness has been useful, very important," he said.

The hunt for Kony has primarily been carried out by troops from Uganda, who received a boost last year when President Barack Obama deployed 100 U.S. forces to help regional governments in the mission. American soldiers are now based in Uganda, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Congo.

The LRA is responsible for 2,600 civilian deaths since 2008, according to the African Union.

The African Union mission, to be led by a Ugandan commander, will comprise troops from Uganda, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Congo, countries where Kony's reign of terror has been felt over the years.

The African Union's most prominent military mission is in Somalia, where 17,700 troops – primarily from Uganda, Kenya and Burundi – are fighting al-Shabab militants. The force has made strong gains over the last year, pushing insurgents out of Somalia's capital.

Jason Russell, the director of the Kony 2012 video and the co-founder of Invisible Children, was detained by San Diego police Thursday for bizarre behavior, although they did not arrest him. His wife, Danica Russell, released a statement Friday blaming exhaustion for what she called his “irrational” behavior.

According to NBC San Diego, said that Russell was detained for allegedly masturbating in public and vandalizing cars, the San Diego Police Department said. The SDPD also said that he seemed to be under the influence of a something, but did not specify what. "Due to the nature of the detention, he was not arrested. During the evaluation we learned we probably needed to take him to a medical facility because of statements he was saying,” SDPD Lt. Andra Brown told the media.

TMZ actually posted a video of what appears to be the incident described by police.

Police added that the 33-year-old was described as only wearing his underwear and that people were trying to calm him down. When they arrived, Russell was completely cooperative with police and an SDPD spokesperson said that there will likely be no criminal charges because this is more of a medical situation.

Invisible Children CEO Ben Keesy later issued a statement on the organization’s blog Friday, acknowledging that Russell was hospitalized “... yesterday suffering from exhaustion, dehydration, and malnutrition. He is now receiving medical care and is focused on getting better.” Keesy added that, since the Kony 2012 video became an Internet sensation, “The past two weeks have taken a severe emotional toll on all of us, Jason especially, and that toll manifested itself in an unfortunate incident yesterday.”

Keesy said that the organization is “devastated to see him dealing with this personal health issue. We will always love and support Jason, and we ask that you give his entire family privacy during this difficult time.”

MSNBC reports that wife Danica released a statement noting that Russell has been overwhelmed by the publicity the video has received. “We thought a few thousand people would see the film, but in less than a week, millions of people around the world saw it...While that attention was great for raising awareness about Joseph Kony, it also brought a lot of attention to Jason -- and, because of how personal the film is, many of the attacks against it were also very personal, and Jason took them very hard,” she said.