KATHMANDU -- More than 100 Maoists have been killed in a clash with the army in southwestern Nepal, Cabinet sources said Tuesday.

Five soldiers and 10 civilians were also killed, a Cabinet source said.

Army officials said the fierce fighting took place overnight in Khara village in Rukum, 320 kilometers (198 miles) southwest of Kathmandu, but could not confirm the number of casualties.

The violence came as King Gyanendra Monday night extended by three months a state of emergency imposed to tackle the Maoist insurgency -- after it expired at midnight on Saturday.

The emergency was first introduced in November last year after the guerrillas broke a four month cease-fire and pulled out of peace talks, AFP reported.

It gives local authorities and security forces wide powers to detain and interrogate suspected Maoists and impose curfews, measures critics say are Draconian and which have not stopped the rebels.

The rebels have been fighting for a Communist republic in Nepal since 1996 and the insurgency has so far claimed over 4,000 lives, with half the deaths coming in recent months.

The extension of the emergency has split the ruling Nepali Congress Party, with caretaker Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba Sunday being expelled for his decision to dissolve Parliament and call elections two years early.

He apparently asked the king last week to dissolve the 205-member Lower House of Parliament and call elections for November 13 after his own party refused to back him over extending the emergency.