Burundi: Suspected rebels kill 7 rivals in ambush

(SomaliNet) Burundi’s interior minister Evariste Ndayishimiye said on Monday that at least seven suspected members of a breakaway faction of Burundi\'s last active rebel group have been killed by their rivals in an attack near the capital.

Gunmen allied to National Liberation Forces (FNL) leader Agathon Rwasa attacked a camp south of Bujumbura late Sunday, killing the seven, the minister said.

\"The were many attackers and they caused huge damage,\" Ndayishimiye said.

A source confirmed that the attack was the third by the fnl against their rivals.

According to analysts, about 1 400 fighters from the splinter group are housed in two camps and protected by the Burundian military.

The insurgents have repeatedly claimed the government is plotting to weaken them by protecting the dissidents.

The FNL have pulled out of talks with the government on ways of implementing a ceasefire deal signed in September 2006.

They accuse the chief mediator - South African Security Minister Charles Nqakula - of bias and want him replaced.

Nqakula has urged the rebels to rejoin the ceasefire oversight panel after they boycotted talks aimed at resuming the panel\'s work.

Of Burundi\'s seven rebel groups, the FNL is the only one not to have signed up to a 2000 peace process which culminated in the election of a power-sharing government in 2005.

The dissident group remains shadowy with only some 20 percent being \"true\" FNL fighters. The rest are people who want to be conscripted into the army and a group of Burundians from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to officials.

The small central African nation is struggling to recover from a civil war sparked by the 1993 killing of the first democratically elected Hutu president. The war has killed about 300 000 people. - Sapa-AFP