DIBRUGARH, India, April 10 (Reuters) - Indian troops killed eight separatist rebels, including two women, early on Tuesday in the country's remote northeast, a military official said.

Rebels from the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), fighting for independence of the tea- and oil-rich state of Assam, were shot in a thick forest in the neighbouring state of Arunachal Pradesh, bordering China.

"The ULFA militants fired on our boys and we retaliated, killing all eight of them on the spot," said an army officer, who did not want to be quoted by name.

The group, one of more than half-a-dozen insurgent groups in India's restive northeast, has hideouts in sparsely populated Arunachal Pradesh from which it launches attacks in Assam.

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