Nepal: Hundreds killed in air strikes

The Nepalese military has killed hundreds of Maoist rebels in air strikes over the weekend, a government spokesman said today.

The bombing raids were launched in two western districts - the rebel strongholds of Rolpa and Pyuthan.

The security forces already claimed to have killed more than 350 rebels in gunbattles in western Nepal since Thursday.

At least three soldiers and one policeman were also killed in the fighting.

Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is due to meet US President George W Bush in Washington today in an effort to get help to crush the Maoist insurgency, which began in 1996.

He will also meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London this week.

The Nepalese rebels are fighting to abolish the country’s constitutional monarchy and replace it with a communist state.

Their political ideology is based on the writing of Mao Tse-Tsung, the guerrilla leader who brought communism to China in 1949.

Last year, Nepal’s government declared a state of emergency after a spate of rebel attacks that left hundreds of policemen and soldiers dead.

After suffering further heavy casualties in recent weeks, the security forces have begun their largest ever operation against the rebels, who fought a poorly-equipped war for years, but now possess machine guns and rocket launchers seized from government forces.

Around 3,000 people have died in the eight-year uprising.