In a statement read on national television, President Joseph Kabila said the move was intended to "support the action of MONUC", the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the country.

It was also meant to help the repatriation of the former Rwandan armed forces from before the genocide of 1994, the statement said.

The government will take "all necessary measures to bring about peace and stability" Kabila said, while welcoming news that the DRC armed forces had retaken the eastern towns of Kamanyola and Bukavu from renegade troops.

Forces loyal to a dissident DRC general earlier this month captured the eastern towns, sparking fighting which, together with two apparent attempted coups in three months, has shaken the fragile peace process.

Most of the dissident troops are drawn from the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), a former rebel group which Rwandan troops backed during DRC's 1998-2003 war and which is now in a unity government.

The DRC has already dispatched 10,000 troop reinforcements to the region bordering Rwanda, drawing protests from Kigali which considers the troops a threat to its security.

Kinshasa accuses the Tutsi leadership in Kigali of backing the Congolese dissidents, also Tutsis, a charge the Rwandan government denies.

Colonel Jules Mutebusi, one of two officers who has led the dissident campaign in the DRC, crossed into Rwanda on Monday night with a company of 300 men, where he is is being treated as a "military refugee", according to officials in Kigali.

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