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Nepali forces repel Maoist attack on base: 50 killed

200 anti-king protestors arrested

AP, REUTERS, AFP, Katmandu
Nepalese soldiers repelled a major rebel assault on one of their bases in the country's mountainous northwest, killing at least 50 communist guerrillas during a battle that lasted more than 12 hours, the army said yesterday.
Hundreds of guerrillas attacked the security base at Khara village, about 250 miles west of the capital,
Katmandu, the Royal Nepalese Army headquarters in Katmandu said. The battle began about 6 p.m. local time Thursday.
The army said it recovered at least 50 bodies while searching nearby areas but believed more rebels were killed during the fighting. Soldiers also recovered several weapons and ammunition from the battle site.
Eight soldiers also were
wounded in the fighting, three of them critically. They were airlifted out of the area and were being treated at hospitals in nearby towns.
Meanwhile, up to 200 people protesting King Gyanendra's powergrab were arrested in Nepal yesterday, witnesses and political parties said, although police could only confirm that about 70 were rounded up.
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Anti-monarchy protests across the country were called by five political parties to coincide with the 1990 establishment of parliamentary democracy in the Himalayan country.
Witnesses said around 100 protestors were arrested over several hours in Kathmandu's central New Road district as they emerged in groups of five or six to yell anti-king slogans and hold banners in defiance of a ban on public rallies.
Political party sources said at least another 100 people were locked up after staging protests in the town of Birgunj, about 90km from the capital.
A police spokesman confirmed 70 arrests in Kathmandu but could not comment on the Birgunj arrests.
Earlier Nepal's political parties have said they would defy a ban on rallies imposed after the king declared a state of emergency and suspended civil liberties on Feb. 1, although most rallies to date have been small and swiftly ended by the police.
Gyanendra said seizing control was aimed at crushing a Maoist
revolt and blamed bickering politicians for being unable to end an insurgency that has left more than 11,000 people dead since 1996 and wrecked the economy.
Pickets of riot police carrying rattan sticks were deployed in the ancient part of Kathmandu but politicians were unfazed.
"We can't remain silent spectators to the hijacking of democracy and individual freedoms," former legislators and leaders of the biggest opposition group, the Nepali Congress party, said in a statement.
Friday's protests are planned as a 11-day strike called by the Maoists against the King's power seizure continued to disrupt supplies within the kingdom. The strike ends on Tuesday.
The latest assault by the Maoists comes after an attack five weeks ago in which the army said its forces had killed at least 50 rebels in the western rebel stronghold of Bardiya district, near the border of India. Four soldiers also died in that clash.