The Democratic Republic of Congo's army on Tuesday launched an assault against Rwandan Hutu rebels in the volatile east of the country, military and official sources said.

"Operations against the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) began in South Kivu early this morning and will last as long as these people resist," an officer in the armed forces (FARDC) told AFP, asking not to be named.

Doubts linger over a long-announced military offensive against Rwandan rebels based in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, but local people and relief workers are preparing for reprisal raids on civilians.

The rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) already "confiscate part of our harvest, then make us pay money to get to our fields," farmer Jean Bosco Hitimana, 35, said beside his cassava crop.

Congolese government troops have started their long-awaited offensive against Rwandan Hutu rebels in the east of the country, the DR Congo's foreign minister said Saturday.

The Kinshasa government and the international community had given the FDLR -- the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda -- an ultimatum to lay down their arms and surrender by January 2 or face attacks and forcible disarmament.

The army in the Democratic Republic of Congo announced Thursday a fresh offensive against Rwandan ethnic Hutu rebels after weeks of heavy international pressure to act.

But the military operation was being conducted without the assistance of the UN mission in the troubled central African country.

Tanzania will back a U.N. military offensive against Rwandan rebels in lawless eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, President Jakaya Kikwete has said, dismissing accusations he favored the insurgents as "preposterous."

United Nations peacekeepers are preparing a military offensive against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) -- an ethnic Hutu group, some of whose members took part in atrocities in the 1994 Rwandan genocide before crossing into DR Congo -- after they ignored a January 2 deadline to surrender.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday urged President Joseph Kabila to sign a military plan for a joint offensive with U.N. troops to drive out Hutu rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The 15-member council threatened to impose sanctions on supporters of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), who have ignored a January 2 deadline to surrender.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told President Joseph Kabila on Wednesday that it was time for decisive action against Hutu rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The phone call to the DR Congo president came as the 20,000-strong U.N. force gears up for an offensive against the rebels whose success hinges on an active role by the Congolese government troops.

A popular Rwandan musician who has pleaded guilty to plotting attacks against the central African nation's leaders should face life behind bars, a state prosecutor argued Monday.

Kizito Mihigo has been on trial along with three co-accused on charges including conspiracy to murder, complicity in a terrorist act and conspiring against the government of Rwandan strongman and President Paul Kagame.

A group of 83 Rwandan Hutu rebels turned themselves in on Sunday in the face of threatened action by U.N. and Congolese troops as part of efforts to restore calm in the Democratic Republic of Congo's restive east.

The multinational effort to bring peace to the war-torn east of Democratic Republic of Congo is in danger of failing, the International Crisis Group (ICG) warned Thursday.

In a damning report on the U.N.-backed push to pacify the region which has been ravaged by conflict for two decades, the think tank said "the entire stabilization agenda for the eastern provinces is at risk".