(AFP) – Dec 13, 2007

KINSHASA (AFP) — DR Congo troops clashed again Thursday with soldiers loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda in the country's volatile east and pulled back from another town in the region, said a UN source.

Government troops (the FARDC) exchanged fire with Nkunda's troops in Gungu heights, north of Goma, said Major Prem Tiwari, the spokesman for MONUC, the UN mission in the region.

Clashes were also reported further north around Rutshuru, a town in the north of Nord-Kivu province near the border with Uganda, which in recent weeks had been calm.

And near Katale overnight Wednesday, a village about 45 kilometres (28 miles) northwest of Goma, local residents reported loud explosions.

Government troops have been defending the village since Nkunda's rebellion began three months ago.

Residents contacted by AFP said they thought the army had been blowing up ammunition and heavy weapons that they could not take with them as they pulled out.

"The situation is fairly confused in Katale," said Tiwari.

"The FARDC have evacuated their position and headed towards Masisi," about 60 kilometres northwest, he added. So far as he was aware, Katale had not been occupied by rebel forces.

Tiwari described the situation in Masisi as tense Thursday, but said no clashes had been reported.

Earlier this week, Nkunda's fighters forced back government forces to reclaim positions in Nord-Kivu province they had held three months ago.

The FARDC pulled back to the town of Sake, about 30 kilometres northwest of the UN-defended provincial capital of Goma, leading many local people to move out of areas that appeared to be threatened by the rebels.

UN experts estimate that there are some 800,000 internally displaced people in the province.

MONUC undertook to defend both Sake and Goma in a statement issued Wednesday, and appealed to local people to stay calm.

"We are giving assistance to the chiefs of staff of the FARDC so that they can bring the situation under control, and consolidate their positions in other zones of North-Kivu," said Kemal Saiki of MONUC.

The UN force has 4,500 peacekeepers deployed in the province.

Both the UN Security Council and UN chief Ban Ki-moon expressed concern Wednesday about the surge in fighting in the province -- and the effect it was having on local civilians.

In Nord-Kivu itself, Patrick Lavand'Homme, the head of the UN humanitarian operations there called for fighters on all sides to respect the basic rights of civilians.

He said that both government troops and Nkunda's rebels had been implicated in crimes against civilians in the Masisi region; and that Hutu Rwandan rebels had been pillaging the local population around Rutshuru.

Nkunda has rejected demands by Kinshasa and the UN to disarm, and calls from from Washington to surrender and go into exile.

DR Congo's President Joseph Kabila has ordered the army to disarm the rebel fighters by year's end.

Ever since it was set up in July 2006, Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People has been demanding the "neutralisation" of the Mai Mai militia, which it says is being backed by the government against his forces.

It is also demanding the return of Congolese Tutsi refugees sheltered in neighbouring countries, including Rwanda, and the dropping of what it claims are ludicrous war crimes charges against Nkunda dating back to 2004.

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