The Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) is suspected of having carried out Thursday night's attack in the city of Beni, which sits near the DRC border with Uganda.

The raid is thought to have targeted General Marcel Mbangu but instead killed four other soldiers and two civilians, said the sources.

"We were in the middle of a meeting," said one military source who did not wish to be named. An AFP photographer in Beni saw the bodies of two civilians with machete wounds.

The ADF is a militia created by Muslim rebels to oppose Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni but which also operates in the DRC.

They are held responsible for a string of attacks in the region, including another carried out at the end of September in Beni that left 20 people dead.

In all, they are thought to have killed at least 700 civilians -- and 15 Tanzanian peacekeepers -- in a string of attacks carried out since 2014.

In neighbouring Ituri province just to the north meanwhile, government troops killed 30 insurgents during a two-week operation, the army said Friday. Two soldiers were also killed.

The operation had begun on September 18 and ran through to the end of the month, said Lieutenant Jules Tshikudi, the army spokesman in the region.

Since February, more than a hundred civilians have been killed in the violence in Ituri province, which also borders Uganda. More than 300,000 people have fled the violence there, according to local sources.