BANGUI - Ugandan rebels kidnapped at least 40 people and wounded a soldier during an attack in the southwest of the Central African Republic, a Central African soldier said Monday.

The soldier said the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) swept through the town of Rafai early Friday evening going "door to door, taking at least 40 people hostage and stealing property."

The soldier, who asked not to be named but is based in nearby Bangassou, said a Central African army unit responded.

"During the clash that followed, a Central African soldier was wounded and several Tongo-Tongo (the local name for the rebels) were wounded. But the rebels managed to flee with the hostages."

The soldier added that the FACA, or Central African army, was in pursuit of the rebels.

Last week the LRA carried out two attacks in the same region, kidnapping at least 10 people in a raid on the village of Kamandare, a military source said.

Residents of the village of Gbangomboro fled in advance of a similar looting attack two days later.

LRA rebels occupied the nearby mining town of Nzako for a few hours, looting houses and shooting in the air, before withdrawing with several dozen kidnapped people, according to witnesses and a source in the security forces.

Led by Joseph Kony, the LRA took up arms in 1988 in northern Uganda, where they acquired a reputation for brutality. Since 2005, under pressure from the Ugandan army, the fighters pulled back from their bases in north Uganda to move into the far northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, across the border from the CAR.