Nairobi/Kinshasa - The United Nations and the Democratic Republic of Congo have started a military operation directed against Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), news reports said.

Kony is refusing to sign a final peace deal after two years of negotiations and is believed to have been using the time to rearm.

The LRA, which is well-known for recruiting child soldiers, has in recent months been attacking villages and abducting people in southern Sudan, Congo and parts of the Central African Republic, United Nations and military officials said.

Uganda, Congo and the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo agreed in early June to take military action against Kony.

The BBC, quoting United Nations officials, said 200 Congolese troops had been sent to the northern town of Dungu and that another 900 were expected to follow.

The elusive guerrilla commander is based in Congo's north-east, where he fled in late 2004 after being forced out of his former southern Sudanese bases.

Colonel Jean Paul Dietrich, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping mission, told the BBC that the campaign would last "until there is no more danger for the local population in the north of DRC."

The LRA rebellion, which has stretched over decades, has seen tens of thousands killed or mutilated and several million displaced in Uganda.

Kony, a former lay preacher in his late 40s, said he will only sign the peace deal if the International Criminal Court removes indictments it slapped on him and four other LRA members for war crimes.

According to the court, the LRA is guilty of abductions, killings, rapes and the conscription of Ugandan children. (dpa)