India threatens to use airforce against Assam rebels

INDIA: India threatened to use its airforce against outlawed guerrillas blamed for a wave of ethnic attacks that have killed 69 people in the northeastern state of Assam.

The warning came as thousands of combat troops scoured dense jungles of two northeastern states for guerrillas of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), blamed for the recent killings in Assam.

"Operations against the militants will continue indefinitely until they are flushed out," India's junior defence minister Pallam Raju said.

"No timeframe has been fixed for this, and if required, the Indian airforce's help will be taken to deal with the rebels," the junior minister told reporters in the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar.

General J.J. Singh, chief of India's million-plus military, promised to crush the ULFA, a rebel army which has been fighting for a homeland in Assam state for 21 years.

"The army will put so much pressure on them (ULFA) that they will come to the negotiating table for unconditional talks," Singh told the private NDTV television network.

The Press Trust of India, meanwhile, said combat formations were moving towards Myanmar's borders in a bid to hem in ULFA guerrillas on the run.

Troops deployed in troubled Assam were pushing into the nearby Arunachal Pradesh state to cut off ULFA rebels retreating into forests along the India-Myanmar borders, Major General N. C. Marwah told reporters.

"The 3,000 army and paramilitary personnel deployed for the operations have achieved a fair amount of success and were in hot pursuit of the ULFA," Marwah told reporters in the garrison town of Dibrugarh.

"Helicopters have also been kept ready to ferry soldiers to remote areas," he added.

The military say ULFA guerrillas use Arunachal Pradesh as a transit point to their training bases in the military-ruled nation of Myanmar, which has a porous border with India's northeast.

NEW DELHI, Friday, AFP