A DRC army spokesman said government troops had recaptured Kamanyola from renegade soldiers after fierce fighting in the town, which lies just across the border from Rwanda.
The latest fighting in the vast DRC has led South African President Thabo Mbeki to express concern over a "potentially catastrophic" new conflict between the two states.
DRC army spokesman Colonel Leon Richard Kasongo said government soldiers had taken control of Kamanyola, but gave no further details.
He said he had no information on the renegade Colonel Jules Mutebusi, one of two rebellious army officers whose fighters held the eastern DRC town of Bukavu for a week earlier this month.
DRC President Joseph Kabila has accused Rwanda of backing the takeover of Bukavu to try to "prevent the effective reunification of (DRC) and the restoration of state authority across the national territory."
The DRC defence minister yesterday insisted that the more than 10 000 troops massed in the eastern corner of the country did not constitute a threat for DRC's neighbours.
"This is an accelerated integration of the FARDC (DRC army)," Jean-Pierre Ondekane said, a reference to the combining of former rebel combatants and the former army into the country's new army.
"We are not a threat to the integrity of our neighbours," he said.
He said that between 9 000 and 12 000 extra troops were needed, including "5 000 men to be sent by air" to deal with the situation in the east.
Rwanda sent soldiers into the DRC in 1998 to protect its border from attacks by Hutu extremists, who had fled to the former Zaire after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and to back rebels in their fight against the Kinshasa government.
The war that broke out then drew in half a dozen other African countries, claimed some 2,5-million lives before it ended last year, when Kabila enacted a peace pact that set up a transitional government.
Despite peace returning to most of central Africa's largest country, the east has continued to be riven by conflict, much of it driven by ethnic disputes.
Rwanda closed its border with its huge neighbour on June 5, soon after the dissident soldiers captured Bukavu.
On Sunday Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande said Rwanda would not deploy more soldiers to the border zone with DRC despite the renewed fighting.
"There will be nothing more than what there is now. We always have measures in place to defend ourselves," he said.
UN official said earlier that helicopters from the UN mission in DRC, Monuc, had fired warning shots at positions held by the dissident soldiers in Kamanyola.
The shots were fired after a UN demining team came under attack from fighters led by Mutebusi, according to Radio Okapi.
The UN official told AFP the operation was "not a joint offensive" with the DRC army against the dissidents. – Sapa-AFP.
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