Panery (Indo-Bhutan border): Bhutan is determined to weed out Northeast-based militants from its soil and the Army's "Operation All Clear" will continue, a spokesman for the Bhutan Government said today (Dec 22, 2003).

The spokesman, Yeshey Dorjee, told visiting Indian reporters that there would be no let-up in the Army operation against the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) ultras who had illegally operated from camps on Bhutanese territory for 12 years.

The Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) is now concentrating on the deeper recesses of the jungles where they had escaped after their camps were destroyed, Dorjee said.

Apart from dealing a heavy blow to the morale of the insurgents, the Army offensive has killed 120 ultras, not to speak of the complete demolition of their 30 camps, and netted a huge cache of arms and ammunition.

Official sources in this border area said that a large number of militants surrendered before either RBA or the Indian authority. Some beleaguered rebels sneaking inside Bhutan also gave themselves up.

The sources said that in one instance seven militants had trudged five days through dense Bhutan jungles without food to surrender in Panery on Saturday (Dec 20, 2003) before the police.