More than 80 Tamil rebels killed in clashes

Sri Lankan troops killed up to 44 Tamil rebels in clashes in the country’s north and east while destroying three small camps in the insurgents’ last eastern stronghold, the military said today.

The clashes came after the navy said it fought off a rebel sea attack off the northern Jaffna peninsula yesterday, killing an additional 40 separatists, adding to the bloody death toll of more than two-decades of conflict in the Indian Ocean island.