The meeting between Home Minister Thinley Gyamtso and ULFA army chief Paresh Barua took place at Thimpu on May 7. According to the Bhutan Ambassador in New Delhi, Lyonpo Dago Tshering, Barua was told that the ULFA's presence was creating problems within Bhutan and harming relations between Bhutan and India.

Though ULFA is yet to react publicly to this request, top Indian Government officials quoted Barua as saying it would be ``difficult'' to accede to, but he would discuss the issue with colleagues.

The move represents one of the boldest political steps taken during this past year after King Jigme Singye Wangchuck conducted a sweeping cabinet overhaul where he replaced men with long years of service like Tshering, the longest-serving foreignminister in the world, with relative unknowns.

It is unlikely that King Jigme, still the most powerful figure in Bhutan, did not know about the decision to confront ULFA. The move asking the insurgent group to leave comes after a campaign in Bhutan, through the local official media, declaring that its presence and that of Bodo militants seeking shelter from ongoing security operations were the greatest security threats posed to the country.

There are unconfirmed reports that ULFA leaders have met S S Khaplang, chairman of one of the factions of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, at his base in Northern Myanmar to consult an eventual move there.

However, meetings with the Khaplang group are not unusual because the two groups are part of an anti-India alliance and villagers in the Konyak-dominated areas of Nagaland (where the Khaplang faction dominates) have reported that ULFA members have been going across the border.

Bhutan's small army, though it has been modernised and trained incounter-insurgency tactics by India, still lacks the firepower to tackle the insurgents head-on, defence analysts say. Such a campaign could backfire on Thimpu and convert a dormant problem into an active security threat to Bhutan.

ULFA has set up well-organised and heavily armed bases in the forests of Samdruk Dzonkha in southern Bhutan since about 1995. Another militant group from Assam, the National Democratic Liberation Bodo, also has bases in Southern Bhutan and the government at Thimpu has been worried by the presence of well-armed anti-India groups in its territory.

A swift military strike by India at the camps at Bhutan had been mooted but ruled out by by New Delhi earlier, because it could create more problems for its neighbour. A similar drive against the Bodos in 1992 did not yield any results.

For more than a year, the King has been on extensive tours of his country getting public opinion on the Government's latest economic plan and also on the ULFA and the Bodos. Each issue ofKuensel, the only newspaper in the kingdom (published in English, Dzonkha and Nepali) has carried detailed reports of people demanding that the militants leave.

The Chief Operations Officer of the Royal Bhutan Army once described the presence of the two groups as the ``most serious threat'' to Bhutan's security. Ambassador Tshering is more tactful. ``They came to Bhutan without any trouble and we want them to go without any trouble,'' he said.