Gunbattle erupts in Assam, 7 militants dead

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - Troops killed at least seven heavily armed militants in a fierce gun battle in Assam on Friday, a military spokesman said.

India's military said they had not identified the guerrilla group involved in the clashes in Dhubri district near the Bangladesh border.

The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is the biggest group in the region, leading a separatist rebellion in the oil- and tea-rich state of Assam since 1979. It accuses New Delhi of plundering the state's mineral resources and giving back nothing in return.

"The militants who were on the move fired on our boys and in retaliatory fire seven of them were killed on the spot", Colonel Rajesh Kalia, a military spokesman, told Reuters by phone.

India's remote northeast region made of eight states, ringed by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan and home to more than 200 tribes, has been racked by separatist insurgencies since the country gained independence from Britain in 1947.