Ten people died in an attack by a notorious militia late Monday in Beni in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), a local official and military officer said.

An AFPTV reporter was quoted saying, "Hundreds of people were fleeing the area on Tuesday the assault by foot, motorcycle and truck."

"Eight civilians, an intelligence agent and a soldier were killed in the attack on the village of Manzahalo," local leader John Kambale told AFP on Tuesday.

Ten houses were burned down during the attack.

A military officer confirmed the toll and claimed the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) are responsible for the attack.

The militia group started as an Islamist-rooted rebel group in Uganda that opposed President Yoweri Museveni but fell back to North Kivu, DR Congo's border province with Uganda, during the Congo wars of 1990s.

After the army launched a crackdown on the militia group in October the group embarked on a series of massacres.

A total of 393 people have died since the end of October, many of them hacked to death, according to a toll done by the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), an NGO that monitors human rights violations in eastern DR Congo.

Reports from the Congolese army say they have taken ADF's headquarters and that five out of the group's six senior commanders have been killed.

The UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO also reported last Wednesday that the Congolese troops had captured 40 ADF soldiers.

The ADF is one of numerous militias which plague the area — a legacy of two wars that dragged the Democratic Republic of Congo's neighbors into a regional conflict.