The Ugandan army said today it killed 30 Lord's Resistance Army rebels this week, including 15 believed to be behind one the east African nation's worst massacres in years.
The exact number of people killed in the February 21st raid by the LRA near Lira town has provoked controversy in Uganda, with local officials saying more than 230 people were shot or burned to death compared with a government figure of 84 dead.
"We have been hot on their heels since the attack on Balornyo," army spokesman Mr Chris Magezi told Reuters news agency by telephone from his base in Lira town.
"We killed 15 on Thursday from a group led by a commander Odhiambo responsible for (the massacre in) Balornyo and another 15 from a group led by a Raska Lukwiya."
Odhiambo's group was killed at Laminajiko about 30 km (18 miles) north of Balornyo in the neighbouring Pader district.
Mr Magezi said Odhiambo's LRA group was also responsible for killing more than 50 people at the beginning of February at Abia camp also in Lira district.
The February 21st LRA attack on Balornyo camp was one of the worst in the group's 17-year-old insurgency.
Rebels attacked a camp of 4,000 people with automatic weapons and hand grenades and then set fire to grass-thatched huts in which people were hiding, witnesses said.
Uganda has said it plans to exhume the bodies of victims and give them a proper funeral. The exhumation will also help establish an exact death toll.