Bhutan to block entry of fleeing Indian rebels

"We shall render all possible help in preventing militants from India's northeast entering our territory and also uprooting any rebel bases, although there are no camps right now inside our kingdom," said Sonam Dawa, the district magistrate of Bhutan's Serpang district bordering India's Assam state.

Dawa was leading a high-level team of Bhutanese civil and army officials to Assam's western district of Kokrajhar to discuss reports of Assamese rebels trying to set up bases in Bhutan once again.

"We are keeping a close watch on the border area," Dawa told reporters.

Indian intelligence officials said militants from the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) were fleeing their bases in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh after Indian soldiers launched an operation at the weekend to evict them. The Ulfa, a powerful militant group, has been fighting for an independent Assamese homeland since 1979.

An Indian army commander said at least six Ulfa rebels were killed in the offensive and five more were arrested while trying to flee.

The Ulfa shifted its base to Arunachal Pradesh after Bhutan in December 2003 evicted hundreds of Assam rebels including Ulfa in a military offensive in dense jungles that lasted for nearly a month.

More than 30 well-entrenched rebel camps were smashed and dozens of militants killed in the operation.

Some 100 Ulfa rebels are believed to be located in Arunachal Pradesh, police said.

"We are going to break the militant camps and shelters and the operation will continue till we are satisfied," Arunachal Pradesh police chief Amod Kant told AFP by telephone from the state capital Itanagar.

Bhutan shares a 380-kilometre (236-mile) unfenced border with two Indian states, Assam and West Bengal.