The on-going Congolese-Rwandan military operation claimed its first killing of nine Hutu rebels in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), the two neighbouring countries' joint military command announced on Saturday.
The slain rebels were identified as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which is held responsible for the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994. The FDLR is also considered a root cause of conflicts in DR Congo's eastern province of North Kivu.
Thousands of Rwandan troops entered DR Congo this week in a joint military operation to eliminate the FDLR, which has been holed up in North Kivu since the massacre.
The Congolese-Rwandan operation reveals the determination of the two countries to terminate both Hutu and Tutsi rebels in search of rapprochement after years of tensions, in which Kinshasa and Kigali accused each other of supporting rebels.
On Friday, Kigali confirmed that Congolese Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda was arrested in Rwanda after fleeing a joint attack in North Kivu the previous day. Kinshasa said it is seeking the extradition of the ex-general who quit the army in 2004 in a revolt against the government.
Until his arrest, Nkunda was the biggest headache of Kinshasa, which had to agree to talk with him after his National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) quickly swept through large swaths of North Kivu in several moths.
The conflict since late August has displaced 250,000 people, posing a danger of humanitarian disaster.
Under a plan advanced by African leaders to restore stability in DR Congo, the two countries agreed to join hands in uprooting the FDLR.
Diplomats of the two countries also have said they expect to see the normalization of ties, which were severed in the height of hostilities in the past years.