GUWAHATI, Nov 5: The Indian army has launched a major strike against rebels in the troubled north-eastern state of Manipur with the help of neighbouring Myanmar, which has sealed its border, the army said on Friday.

Myanmar promised to cooperate in the battle against insurgents when the country's military ruler, Senior General Than Shwe, visited New Delhi last month. The Indian army said it had killed more than two dozen rebels and arrested 34 since the operation began on Monday. It said it had identified more than 100 rebel camps in the jungles of Manipur and destroyed most of them.

"Now the militants are fleeing their camps, but they cannot cross over to Myanmar because the border is sealed from the other side," military spokesman Major Santanu Dev Goswami told Reuters.

The camps belonged to the powerful United National Liberation Front (UNLF), the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and other smaller armed groups, which have been battling Indian rule in the state for three decades, Goswami said. -Reuters