GUWAHATI, India, Sept 4 (Reuters) - At least 10 tribal insurgents were killed by a rival group after a dispute over the hijacking of a jeep carrying civilians in India's northeastern state of Manipur, police said on Tuesday.

Armed militants of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Issac-Muivah) shot dead cadres of the rival Kuki Liberation Army at a village about 50 km (30 miles) east of Imphal, the state capital, late on Monday, an intelligence officer said.

"The trouble started when the KLA cadres attempted to hijack a vehicle carrying passengers to the village and NSCN members tried to prevent them," the senior officer, who refused to be identified, said, referring to the two groups.

"When the KLA cadres refused to pay heed to the NSCN militants' plea, they were gunned down on the public ground in the village," the officer added.

A spokesman for the NSCN-IM said the group was investigating the incident and would comment later.

Four districts of Manipur and parts of other northeastern states are home to both ethnic Nagas and Kukis and have been dragged into a turf war as the NSCN-IM pushes for self-rule in a "Greater Nagaland", to include all areas where Nagas live.

The NSCN-IM agreed a ceasefire with government troops in 1997 covering its activities in Nagaland state, but peace talks have failed to find a solution to their revolt, which began in 1947 and in which 20,000 people were killed before the truce.

Kuki leaders say nearly a thousand of their people were killed and over 300 villages burnt by NSCN-IM guerrillas before 1997.

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