Guerrilla bases in Myanmar intact: Naga rebel leader

The National Socialist Council of Nagaland has been fighting for an independent homeland for Naga tribespeople in the remote northeast since the early 1980s. Some of the rebels claim to have set up camps in neighbouring Myanmar.

"We have enough strength and capacity to survive in Myanmar," Kughalu Mulatonu, a top leader of the NSCN, told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location along the India-Myanmar border. "We are prepared to face anything and everything to hold on," he added.

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Myanmar's Army attacked rebel camps last week, Calcutta-based The Telegraph newspaper earlier quoted another NSCN leader as saying. But Mulatonu refused to say whether Myanmar's forces had launched an offensive against rebel bases there.

During a visit to Assam last week, Army Chief General NC Vij said a joint Indo-Myanmar military assault on the insurgents inside Myanmar was a possibility. Last month, Myanmar's Foreign Minister U Win Aung visited New Delhi and said his country would not allow anti-India rebels to operate from the territory.

"If New Delhi is to collaborate with the Burmese junta for a crackdown against us, it could jeopardize the truce between us and the Indian government," Mulatonu said. Myanmar is also known as Burma.

Brigadier Sheonan Singh, an Army officer, said soldiers routinely guarded the frontier with Myanmar, but hadn't instigated operations against the Naga rebels.

India shares a 1,640-kilometer (1,200-miles) porous border with Myanmar.Foreign guerrilla camps operating in Myanmar are intact and ready to repel attacks by the ruling junta's military or Indian forces, a leader from a rebel group said on Wednesday.

The National Socialist Council of Nagaland has been fighting for an independent homeland for Naga tribespeople in the remote northeast since the early 1980s. Some of the rebels claim to have set up camps in neighbouring Myanmar.

"We have enough strength and capacity to survive in Myanmar," Kughalu Mulatonu, a top leader of the NSCN, told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location along the India-Myanmar border.