KINSHASA, Congo (CNN) -- Congo officials said Monday the government has launched counteroffensives in the east and west against Tutsi rebels and is threatening to march all the way to the Rwandan capital of Kigali.

State radio and senior officials say the strategic Congo River ports of Boma and Matadi, about 210 miles (350 kilometers) southwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's capital of Kinshasa, were quiet and controlled by government troops Monday.

Information Minister and government spokesman Didier Mumengi also said that army loyalists were advancing on rebel positions in the east, where soldiers from Congo's ethnic Tutsi Banyamulenge community launched the revolt on August 2.

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"Until now we have only used infantry in the Bukavu and Uvira regions," he said. "The Rwandans have problems in the east. They are starting to retreat."

The Congo government had not previously acknowledged that rebels -- who have vowed to overthrow President Laurent Kabila -- had reached Boma, and there was no independent confirmation of the radio report or of Mumengi's claims of the government advances.

But even as trucks filled with government troops rumbled out of Kinshasa on their way to reinforce fighters in western Congo, state-controlled television reported that rebels attacked a small village only 24 miles (40 kilometers) from Kinshasa.

Few details of the battle were provided, but National Radio-Television said several Congolese troops were wounded and a number of Tutsi rebels were killed.

The scale of the fighting was unclear, but the broadcast quoted local residents as saying the rebels withdrew after the fight.

The report could not be independently confirmed.

Kabila: 'There is no rebellion'

Officials and independent sources say the rebels hold the western garrison town of Kitona, the naval base of Banana and the oil town of Muanda in the west of this vast Central African country that was once a Belgian colony.

Kabila

Boma and Matadi are major towns in the river corridor supplying Kinshasa from the sea.

"Boma is calm after rebel forces were obliged to fall back thanks to the firepower of government troops," a state radio correspondent said from Matadi.

"We have been reinforcing our positions and know that we will take the war as far as Kigali," the Rwandan capital, Mumengi said. He said fighting in the eastern Kivu region focused on the city of Bukavu near the Rwandan border.

Mumengi said that the army, which included traditional Mai-Mai warriors who have proved a security problem in the past, was advancing in the east.

The government claims Rwanda instigated the rebellion and is fighting alongside Tutsi rebels. Mumengi also accused Rwanda of executing captured Congolese officers and of rounding up civilians in the Kivu region.

Kabila told CNN on Monday that "there is no rebellion" in his country. "There is an aggression from Rwanda. An open aggression. And I know that CNN was there in Bukavu and Goma five days ago when they occupied the country."

'Looking for scapegoats'

Rwanda has repeatedly denied the charge, but has said it will hit back if attacked and says it is contemplating a preemptive strike against Congo.

Rwanda sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council on Monday saying it had no part in the uprising. Rwanda's U.N. representative, Gideon Kayinamura, told the United Nations that "what is happening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a purely internal matter, which the authorities ... are trying to externalize by looking for scapegoats."

Mumengi also accused Uganda on Sunday of sending soldiers and tanks into Congo in support of the Tutsi fighters. Uganda dismissed the charges Monday, and an advisor to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called the allegations "childish and wide of the mark."

The charges could not be independently confirmed.

Tutsi soldiers with close ties to Rwanda launched an offensive a week ago in Kivu, vowing to topple Kabila's 14-month-old regime. Within the first few days of their uprising, they captured several key cities near the Rwandan border, including Goma and Bukavu.

Sylvan Biku, chief information officer for the mutinous 10th battalion that took Goma, said Monday that "Kabila's going to leave whether he wants to or not. But it would be better for him if he negotiated his departure at least in an honorable way."

Biku also denied that Rwandans were helping the rebels. "In Goma, we have 19 battalions. In Bukavu, we have 12 battalions. What would the Rwandans be doing here? I think our brigade has more soldiers than Rwanda."

A protracted fight?

Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu says Kabila is using the Tutsi uprising as a pretext to attack Rwanda and distract attention from domestic threats to his rule. He said Rwanda had evidence that Kabila's forces had been training former Hutu soldiers and militiamen in the southern city of Kamina, and have plans to use them against Rwanda.

Rebellious Rwandan soldiers and Congolese Tutsi fighters -- including the ethnic Banyamulenge -- backed Kabila last year in his ouster of the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, but they have since grown disaffected. The Banyamulenge have close ethnic ties with the Rwandan Tutsis.

Weekend talks in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, showed little sign of easing tensions between the feuding neighbors, but a U.N. team arrived in Kinshasa late Sunday in hopes of convincing all sides to stop fighting.

Congo's government, however, appears to be gearing up for a protracted fight and is recruiting militia fighters in Kinshasa.

Reporter Bob Coen, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.