Tamil Tiger rebels kidnapped 24 Tamil teenagers, mostly girls, while they were attending class ahead of annual examinations, the Sri Lankan military said today.

Sri Lankan air force jets bombed the Tamil rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi today, killing at least four people, a spokesman for the rebel group said.

Sri Lankan fighter jets pounded Tamil Tiger positions on besieged Jaffna peninsula today.

Sri Lanka’s air force today pounded Tamil Tiger rebel positions in the country’s north, military officials said.

Sri Lanka’s armed forces and Tamil Tiger rebels traded artillery fire overnight, as the military advanced on a strategic Tiger-held enclave in the northeast in an assault that has killed at least 79 people, the military said today.

An explosion at an army checkpoint killed six people and wounded 14 others in north-east Sri Lanka today.

A suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up next to a car carrying a top Sri Lankan general today, killing the third-highest ranking officer in the military and three other people.

Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels detonated two mines in eastern Sri Lanka today, killing two soldiers and a policeman, the military said, in continuing violence that threatens to push the island nation back into civil war.

Tamil Tiger rebels have shelled Sri Lanka army positions and launched a deadly raid on a breakaway faction they say is backed by the Sri Lankan government, while a Tamil civilian was shot dead, officials said, heightening fears of a return to civil war.

Sri Lanka reopened roads linking government and Tamil Tiger rebel-held territory today after two days of airstrikes against guerrilla areas ended, but the threat of a return to civil war remained amid continuing bloodshed.

Angry mobs set fire to shops following two explosions today in a restive north-east Sri Lankan town, with 11 people reported killed.

Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a pro-rebel legislator as he attended midnight Mass at a church in eastern Sri Lanka, the Defence Ministry said today, sparking fears of a return to civil war in the island nation.

Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels ambushed a naval convoy in north-western Sri Lanka today, killing 13 sailors and injuring at least two others, the navy said.