Ugandan troops killed 14 rebels from the cult-like Lord?s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in a clash in neighbouring southern Sudan, the army said yesterday. Army spokesman Lieutenant Paddy Ankunda said the clash took place on Tuesday at Parajok, near the Acheti River just a few km (miles) from the Ugandan border.

?This group was under a commander called Onen Kamudule. We intercepted them, killed 14 of them and captured 18,? he said.

Ugandan troops are allowed to attack the LRA in southern Sudan under a 2002 accord between Kampala and Khartoum. The LRA?s leadership was scattered by a Ugandan raid last month on its headquarters near the southern Sudanese town of Juba in what Kampala says was the heaviest blow against the mysterious group for several years.

The LRA, led by self-proclaimed mystic Joseph Kony, has waged an 18-year-old insurgency against the government in northern Uganda. Some 1.6 million people have fled their homes to escape the fighting. The group is known for its brutality, routinely targeting civilians, slicing off the lips and ears of its victims and abducting tens of thousands of children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves.

Most Ugandans say the group appears to have no clear aim beyond overthrowing the government of President Yoweri Museveni. The Ugandan army says Kony is on the run from its forces in lawless southern Sudan?s Imatong Hills. Meanwhile, Ugandan government officials said a team from the International Criminal Court has arrived in Uganda. The Hague-based court is probing possible war crimes by the LRA.