Kampala  - The Ugandan army is preparing its forces along the Sudanese border to fight out any possible incursions by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) after talks to end the country's 20-year civil war crumbled, military officials said Wednesday.

Leaders of the guerilla army declined to sign the final peace treaty in April after two years of the southern Sudanese-mediated peace talks.

Instead they are not only carrying out attacks in Sudan but threatening to resume the war in the northern region.

"We are at the ready and have deployed along the border areas," the military spokesman in the war-ravaged northern region, captain Ronald Kakurungu, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa by telephone.

"If they come to attack Uganda, it will be suicidal because we will defeat them," he added.

On June 5, the LRA attacked a military outpost of the southern Sudanese army near the DRC border, killing over 20 people, including 14 members of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

The brutal civil war left thousands dead or mutilated and nearly two million others displaced in the north.

The rebels are notorious for abducting children and youths, whom they force to fight and commit atrocities. (dpa)