Rwanda insisted today it would soon attack rebels inside the Democratic Republic of Congo unless they were disarmed, as the UN Security Council warned any incursion could threaten regional stability.
President Mr Paul Kagame said Congo and the international community had had 10 years to tackle the rebels and had failed to take firm action.
"If the international community cannot take care of this problem, if the Congo cannot take full care of this problem...we cannot simply be punching balls for these criminals. We are really left with no option other than singling out specific targets," Mr Kagame told reporters in Senegal's capital Dakar.
"There are clear bases known to us of these ex-FAR/Interahamwe (rebels). At the appropriate moment we will certainly take measures about that," he said late last night, without giving a timeframe.
The rebels, many of them members of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR), include former army and Hutu militia members who took part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
Rwanda has twice invaded Congo in the past decade to confront them.
The last assault in 1998 was one of the triggers for a five-year war in Congo that sucked in five other neighbouring states and killed three million, mostly from hunger and disease.
Foreign Minister Charles Murigande said Rwanda was still willing to let Congolese or other forces disarm the rebels but only if they acted quickly.
"I don't know any country in the world that would be willing to live with such a threatening force, especially a force that is genocidal in nature and bent on exterminating people," he told reporters.
Rwanda says the rebels are advancing on its borders from bases in Congo, although the UN peacekeeping mission in the country says it has not spotted any major movements.