At least 50 Maoist rebels have been killed in a gun battle with Nepali soldiers, the army said today.
Four soldiers were also killed in yesterday's clash in the western rebel stronghold of Bardiya, near the border with India, an army spokesman said.
"We have found bodies of terrorists scattered in the fields and the forest," another officer said, adding he expected the rebel death toll to rise as soldiers searched the remote area.
There was no comment from the guerrillas who usually take away their fallen comrades for burial elsewhere.
It was the deadliest fighting since King Gyanendra seized power last month.
King Gyanendra blamed Nepal's warring politicians for failing to tackle the Maoists, who are estimated to control more than two-thirds of the impoverished Himalayan nation,
But India and Britain, which have given helicopters and guns to the Nepali army to fight the rebels, criticised the king's decision to take absolute power, and halted military supplies to the embattled nation.
The army officer said the latest fighting began near the jungles of Bardiya after the rebels fired on a group of soldiers who had gone to remove barricades set up by the rebels to enforce a transport blockade last month.
The Maoists, who have since lifted their blockade of the landlocked nation, have urged political parties to join their campaign against the monarch. More than 11,000 people have been killed and hundreds have "disappeared" since 1996 in fighting between government troops and Maoists.
The rebels launched their rebellion to set up a communist republic in place of Nepal's Hindu monarchy. About 150 people have died in rebel violence since King Gyanendra's power grab.