Forest ambush kills nine Maoists

HYDERABAD, India, Nov 10 (Reuters)

Indian police shot dead nine Maoist rebels, including five women, on Friday in a forest gun battle in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, police said.

Commandos specially trained to fight the rebel insurgency that affects a large swathe of rural India ambushed the Maoists in Kadapa district, 390 km (240 miles) south of Hyderabad, the state capital.

Police had been searching for another group of rebels who had killed a local leader of the state's ruling Congress party on Thursday night at the time, top officer Y. Nagi Reddy said. Andhra Pradesh is one of the worst-hit of at least 13 Indian states facing Maoist violence.

The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of millions of India's poor landless labourers and peasants. Thousands of people have died in their insurgency since the 1990s