Congo militia threaten to execute UN peacekeepers

KINSHASA, June 26 (Reuters) Congolese militia linked to gunmen holding seven Nepalese UN peacekeepers hostage threatened today to order their execution after clashes last week.

But some U.N. sources questioned whether the group of gunmen holding the men hostage would take orders from the militia issuing the threat.

The peacekeepers were taken hostage last month during clashes between the UN and gunmen, highlighting the insecurity in eastern Congo one month before historic elections are due to be held.

Militiamen loyal to Ituri warlord Peter Karim have issued a range of demands, including ransoms and the release of fellow militia fighters being held by the government, but the UN has called for the unconditional release of their men.

The Revolutionary Movement of Congo (MRC), a loose coalition of gunmen in the lawless northeastern district, issued the execution threat on Monday following clashes between government forces and militiamen late last week.

''If there is another such attack, the ... MRC will feel obliged to order the pure and simple execution of these hostages,'' the MRC said in a statement.

The MRC, which was set up in neighbouring Uganda last year and brought together various ethnic groups, said the clashes took place when the UN and government forces tried to rescue the hostages.

But a UN spokesman denied any operation to rescue the hostages took place and said he understood it was the militia who had attacked the Congolese government positions.

Both Hema and Lendu ethnic fighters joined the MRC but alliances in Ituri are fluid and some UN sources questioned whether Karim's men would obey orders from the MRC.

Ituri is just one of several parts of eastern Congo where violence continues despite three years of official peace and the presence of the UN's largest peacekeeping mission.

The July 30th presidential and parliamentary polls are meant to draw a line under Congo's 1998-2003 war, which sucked in six neighbouring countries and has killed four million people, mostly from hunger and disease.

REUTERS SHR ND1724