(Adds government, army quotes, paragraphs 7-10) By Biswajyoti Das JORHAT, India, Jan 13 (Reuters) - A powerful separatist group in India's restive Assam state threatened on Saturday to attack ruling party politicians if security forces killed any of its cadre in a new offensive against the rebels. Thousands of troops launched operations three days ago to hunt down the rebels, blamed for killing dozens of migrant workers in the past week in the northeastern region. Authorities say militants belonging to the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) are responsible for killing 72 people since last Friday, nearly all of them Hindi-speaking migrant labourers from eastern India. "We will target the grassroots workers as well as leaders of the Congress party if the operations against us are not stopped immediately," Prabal Neog, head of an armed wing of ULFA, told Reuters by phone. The tea-and oil-rich state is ruled by the Congress party which also leads the federal coalition government. The threat came ahead of a visit by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh next week to meet the families of those killed in the attacks this month. India's National Security Adviser M.K.Narayanan said the ULFA would be dealt with firmly, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. "We want peace in Assam. If the ULFA continues to change its tactics, we will pursue the ULFA in a manner that we have tried to avoid so far," he told reporters accompanying Singh to the Association of South East Asian Nations meet in Philippines. Intelligence officials said ULFA members were fleeing into the jungles and an army spokesman said troops were combing the area. "Our operations are going on full swing and we are not giving any respite to the militants," defence spokesman Colonel Narendra Singh said from Tezpur town. The rebel group, one of the more than half-a-dozen major insurgent outfits in India's isolated and ethnically diverse northeast, has not admitted responsibility for the killings. The group accuses New Delhi of exploiting Assam's resources while doing little to develop the state, and flooding it with non-Assamese people. "The political leaders have come to shed crocodile tears from mainland India and play divisive politics here," Neog said. (Additional reporting by Nigam Prusty in New Delhi)
