Separatist Tamil Tiger rebels and Sri Lankan troops battled overnight for territory in a volatile eastern district, leaving at least eight rebels and four soldiers dead.

Commandos overran a Tamil Tiger rebel base in eastern Sri Lanka today, killing at least 20 guerrillas in fighting that also left three commandos dead, the military said.

Sri Lankan officials today said commandoes had found torture chambers at a captured rebel base, but the separatists said the cement cells were for holding prisoners and denied any torture had taken place.

The Sri Lankan government today accused the Tamil Tiger rebels of abducting 455 underage combatants from government-controlled areas this year and asked the insurgents to stop the practice.

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

A suicide bomber targeted a convoy of vehicles carrying Sri Lanka’s defence secretary and other security officials in the capita Colombo today, wounding at least 14 people, the military and a hospital official said.

Human rights group Amnesty International has denounced the shelling of a school by Sri Lanka’s military as a senior Tamil Tiger rebel said 60 civilians had been killed in the artillery attack.

At least 45 Tamils were killed and 125 wounded today when government forces fired artillery and rocket launchers toward a Tamil Tiger rebel-held region in eastern Sri Lanka, a senior rebel official said.

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 Lanka’s military carried out airstrikes on Tamil rebel artillery positions today in the first air raid since failed peace talks in Switzerland, the Defence Ministry said.

Tamil Tiger rebels rammed a truck loaded with explosives into a naval road convoy in central Sri Lanka today, killing at least 92 sailors who were going on leave, in what the military described as a cold-blooded massacre.

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

At least 52 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in heavy clashes with Sri Lankan troops, the military said today.

Sri Lanka’s military has lost 28 soldiers in three days of artillery attacks as it advanced on Tamil Tiger rebel strongholds, officials said today.

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.

Sri Lanka’s government said today it has no plans to withdraw from its ceasefire with Tamil Tiger rebels despite a regional Tiger leader declaring the accord dead because of air and artillery assaults on rebel territory.

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.

A powerful land mine ripped through a bus packed with commuters and schoolchildren in northern Sri Lanka today, killing at least 62 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.

Mine explosions killed five government military personnel today, and police found five decapitated bodies dumped in a rubber plantation, as violence that has pushed Sri Lanka to the brink of civil war showed no signs of letting up.

The death toll from two explosions and subsequent street violence in a restive north-east Sri Lankan town today rose to 16, the military said.

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

Two Britons were wounded, one critically, when a land mine blast killed 12 Sri Lankan sailors today.

A faction of Tamil insurgents attacked rival Tamil Tiger rebels in eastern Sri Lanka today, killing at least one person.

The Tamil Tiger rebels accused the Sri Lankan navy today of barring Tamil fishermen from going to the sea, a day after suspected insurgents rammed a fishing boat packed with explosives into a navy vessel, killing 13 sailors.