At least 150 insurgents have been killed in the latest clash between Maoist rebels and the security forces in western Nepal, the army says.

A lot of bodies of the guerrillas are scattered around the army camp

Devendra Raj Kadel, deputy home minister

The night-long gun battle took place after an attack on an army garrison in Khara, a village in remote Rukum district, about 320 kilometres (200 miles) west of Kathmandu.

Nepalese television has broadcast footage of dozens of bodies lying in fields, which it says are those of rebels killed in the battle.

The clash comes during a period of intense political crisis in the kingdom that has seen the dissolution of parliament and the calling of early elections by beleaguered Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

It is the first fighting of any size since early May, when clashes in western Nepal claimed hundreds of lives on both sides.

Five soldiers were killed and 21 others wounded in the fighting. A BBC correspondent in Kathamandu says official casualty figures have been confirmed by reporters who visited the area.

A senior defence official said the Maoists had been armed with rocket launchers and automatic weapons looted from the army, many of which have been recaptured.

"The rebels came in their hundreds in human waves attacking the camp," the unnamed official told Reuters news agency.

Nepal's deputy home affairs minister said bodies of the guerrillas were "scattered" around the camp.

Weapons recaptured

Mr Deuba has got backing from the Communist opposition

Casualty figures from the faraway battlefields of Nepal's war are usually impossible to verify, mainly because the Maoist rebels take away the bodies of fallen comrades.

Under a state of emergency in force since November, journalists and human rights workers are also seldom able to visit the conflict zone to check details for themselves.

The Maoist attack on the remote garrison in Rukum district, a rebel stronghold, came as the Nepalese monarch, King Gyanendra, reimposed a state of emergency first declared last November.

Interim government

The declaration lapsed amid political in-fighting last week, leading to the dissolution of parliament by Prime Minister Deuba, and fresh elections in November, two years ahead of schedule.

Mr Deuba now heads an interim government and the extension of the state of emergency was a relatively simple matter, free of the politics that have plagued his government's attempts to handle this crisis in the past.

The latest clash will underline the urgency of the situation, particularly for many members of the former governing party, the Nepali Congress, who have expelled Mr Deuba and said they do not support the emergency regulations.