Depending on who you talk to, General Laurent Nkunda has either spent four years protecting his Tutsi tribemates from Hutu genocidaires or he is a Rwandan-backed troublemaker, intent on destabilising the Democratic of Congo.

Today it seems time has run out for the rebel leader.

It may be that he has fallen out with too many of his senior lieutenants or that his arrest was the price Rwanda was willing to pay in order to send troops over the border to clear out Hutu militias hiding in Congolese forests.

Either way the man known as the Butcher of Kisangani appears to have lost support in key places.

“Nkunda didn’t realise that he had lost political capital with a series of foolish moves,” said a UN source in the regional capital of Goma. “He thought he was indispensable and that he could do whatever he pleased.”

The forests of eastern Congo are the refuge of FDLR guerrillas, Hutu militias who fled Rwanda after the genocide.

Kigali has long accused the DRC of not doing enough to clear the forests of Hutu gunmen.

As a result few doubt that Rwanda was offering assistance to Nkunda to do the job instead.

A United Nations report last year cited evidence that Nkunda’s rebels were receiving cash and recruits from Rwanda, and that senior commanders had a direct line to officials in the Rwandan capital Kigali.

But his leadership had been under threat ever since a breakaway faction of his National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) declared a ceasefire earlier this week.

At times his comrades have been irritated by his erratic, narcissistic style – promising one thing in media interviews before contradicting himself days later.

Last year his rebels sparked a humanitarian crisis as they moved on the city of Goma. A quarter of a million people were forced from their homes.

In the end Rwanda probably decided that it no longer needed Nkunda’s bloody help.

“He’s an embarrassment for Kigali and he became part of the deal between Kinshasa and Kigali,” said Francois Grignon, Africa director of the International Crisis Group in Nairobi. “He went too far.”

On Tuesday around 3,500 Rwandan troops crossed the Congolese border to help DRC forces disarm the Hutu militias and Nkunda’s became surplus to requirements.

Times Recommends

• Times Charity Appeal: SolarAid
• Is it Black Monday all over again for Dubai?
• Behind the scenes at the biggest deal