Twenty killed in Sri Lanka clashes

Scattered gunbattles and a roadside bomb blast in Sri Lanka’s embattled north killed 17 Tamil separatists and three soldiers in two days of violence, the military said today.

Troops attacked Tamil Tiger rebels across the front lines in northern Mannar district this morning, triggering a battle that killed six guerrillas, a defence ministry official said.

The army suffered no casualties, he said.

Sporadic fighting in the same district on Friday left 10 rebels and two soldiers dead. Fifteen insurgents and four troops were also wounded, the official said.

Tamil guerrillas later triggered a roadside bomb targeting an army truck in north-eastern Welioya region on Friday night, killing one soldier. Separately, a gunbattle along the front lines in Welioya killed one Tamil rebel and wounded 13 others, four of them soldiers, he said.

Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan was not immediately available for comment today.

It was not possible to independently verify the military’s claims because the media are banned from the northern jungles where much of the fighting takes place. Both sides commonly exaggerate their enemy’s casualties while underplaying their own.

The government has pledged to capture the rebels’ de facto state in the north and crush them by the end of the year. But diplomats and other observers say the army is facing more resistance than expected.

Fighting has escalated along the northern front lines since the government withdrew from a long-ignored cease-fire in January.

The Tamil Tigers have been fighting since 1983 for an independent homeland for minority ethnic Tamils, who have been marginalised for decades by governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting.