The Ugandan government says the army and ethnic Karamojong warriors killed more than thirty members of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army in an operation yesterday Thursday in the northeast of the country.

The defence minister, Steven Kauma, said the army had been pursuing the rebels following an attack on a village on Tuesday, in which three people were killed and about fifty abducted.

Mr Kauma said that during yesterday's operation forty-three of those abducted were rescued.

Correspondents say it was the first time the LRA had strayed outside the Gulu and Kitgum districts of northern Uganda into the volatile Karamajong region.