Ugandan troops have shot dead a senior officer of LRA rebels near the Sudanese border, a military spokesman said on Sunday, according to Reuters. Lieutenant-Colonel Lobul was killed on Friday in a gunbattle with soldiers near Okidi village, west of Kitgum town, said Captain Paddy Ankunda, army spokesman in the region. "We have stepped up our operations against all suspected LRA hideouts in northern Uganda and southern Sudan," he said. Lobul's body was taken to the government hospital in Kitgum, about 450 km (280 miles) north of the capital Kampala.