FACTBOX - Rebel leader Nkunda is arrested

(Reuters) - Congolese Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda was arrested in Rwanda after he resisted a joint Rwandan-Congolese military operation designed to pacify eastern Congo, officials said on Friday.

Here are some details about the conflict in eastern Congo.

* RENEWED CONFLICT:

-- Nkunda, and his Tutsi rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), were blamed for an upsurge of fighting in Congo's North Kivu province in recent months.

He had launched his Congolese Tutsi rebellion in 2004.

-- The renewed violence worsened an already dire humanitarian crisis in North Kivu, which had 850,000 internal refugees even before the most recent fighting began in August, according to U.N. figures. By late 2008, 250,000 people had been forced to flee, many of whom have been displaced several times.

-- In August, Nkunda's rebels suspended participation in a tenuous peace process, killing off a frequently broken ceasefire dating back to a January 2008 peace deal.

-- Nkunda's rebels and government troops each accused the other of provoking clashes and they launched a major offensive on October 26, advancing to within 20 km (12 miles) of Goma.

-- In November, former United Nations envoy Olusegun Obasanjo held talks with Congolese President Joseph Kabila, seeking to prevent the fighting in North Kivu from escalating into a repeat of the wider 1998-2003 Congo war that sucked in six neighbours.