BOGOTA (Reuters) -- Colombian troops have killed at least 10 members
                  of an illegal ultra-right death squad that recently massacred scores of
                  peasants in an oil-rich corner of the northeast, an army general said Sunday.

                  Despite government pledges to clamp down on the right-wing gangs, which
                  have some 5,000 combatants nationwide, army and paramilitary units rarely
                  clash.

                  International human rights groups and even the U.S. State Department
                  accuse the military of sponsoring the right-wing extremists in their "dirty war"
                  against Marxist rebels and their suspected civilian sympathizers.

                  "At the moment we're reporting 10 paramilitary fighters dead in successive
                  combats," Gen. Alberto Bravo, head of the army's Fifth Brigade based in
                  Norte de Santander province, told reporters.

                  He said soldiers had been tracking the death squad since it murdered at least
                  36 people in villages close to the town of Tibu, in Norte de Santander, last
                  weekend. Bravo did not specify when the fighting began but indicated
                  clashes were still continuing.

                  The United Nations and London-based rights group Amnesty International
                  condemned last weekend's massacre and blamed the government of ignoring
                  warnings that the paramilitary gang would attack the area -- a traditional
                  Marxist rebel stronghold.

                  Amnesty said the killings were a sign of the continuing alliance between the
                  army and the death squads.

                  Earlier this year, President Andres Pastrana launched peace talks with the
                  Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America's largest
                  surviving 1960s rebel army. But the slow-moving process has failed to stem
                  the long-running conflict in which more than 35,000 people have died in just
                  the last 10 years.

                  In fact, stop-start negotiations, which are going ahead with no prior
                  cease-fire agreement, have coincided with a surge in political violence by
                  gunmen of both the left and right.

                  In an interview published in the latest edition of Newsweek International,
                  due to go on sale Monday, one of the country's top paramilitary warlords,
                  Ramon Isaza, threatened to step up his fight against the rebels.

                  "We must press ahead. Our mission is to remove the subversives from any
                  part of the country where they exist," he said, speaking from his powerbase
                  in the central Magdalena Medio region.

                  Last week, Carlos Castano, the overall leader of a nationwide alliance of
                  paramilitary gangs accepted responsibility for the massacre near Tibu but
                  said most of the victims were guerrillas.

                  In a rare sign that Colombian authorities may be beginning to respond to
                  U.S. pressure to break ties between the army and paramilitary gangs, as a
                  condition for increased U.S. military aid, the Prosecutor General's office
                  fired Friday three army officers suspected of links to death squads.

                  A captain, a lieutenant and a second lieutenant were all dismissed for
                  allowing a paramilitary unit to raid two working class neighborhoods and kill
                  at least 32 civilians in the oil town of Barrancabermeja in May 1998.

                  The prosecutor's office said the trio had removed a road block that would
                  normally have prevented the gang driving into the town and said they failed
                  to react despite hearing gunshots just 800 yards away.

                  At least six other army and police officers were suspended for their role in
                  the massacre for periods ranging between 15 and 30 days, including the
                  head of Barracabermeja police Colonel Joaquin Correa.