Kampala  - Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and his DR Congo counterpart Joseph Kabila met Wednesday in a western border town to review the on-going joint military operations against Ugandan rebels in the north-east of the Congo, a senior minister has confirmed.

The operations by Ugandan, Congolese and Sudanese troops against the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) guerrillas who fled to Congo's Garamba National Park late 2004 and a disputed island on Lake Albert were the main issues, Lands Minister Daniel Omara Atubo told Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) by telephone.

The meeting took place in the mining town of Kasese, 380 kilometres from the capital Kampala.

The regional armies began an offensive against the notorious LRA guerrillas in December when the LRA refused to sign the final peace treaty to end the rebellion that has killed thousands of people and displaced nearly two million others in northern Uganda.

The attack against rebels whose leaders were indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2005, has not registered much progress and instead the guerrillas who scattered into smaller groups, have unleashed further atrocities against civilians in the Congo.

They have killed about 1,000 people in Congo's remote region and parts of the Central African Republic and displaced tens of thousands of others since the offensive against them began, according to UN and other independent charity groups. (dpa)