Sri Lanka says captures Tiger lines, kills 30 rebels

COLOMBO, Jan 16 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's military said today it had captured a stretch of the Tamil Tigers' defences along a battlefront in the island's restive east and killed around 30 fighters, but the Tigers denied it.

The clash at the village of Panichchankerni in the eastern district of Batticaloa comes as the military seeks to drive the Tigers out of a coastal pocket of territory they control under the terms of a tattered 2002 truce.

An estimated 10,000-15,000 Tamil civilians are trapped slightly further north within rebel territory after 20,000 others fled to government areas in recent weeks to escape the crossfire of artillery duels.

''One soldier died and 15 were injured. More than 30 dead bodies of Tiger terrorists are lying in the area,'' a spokesman for Media Center for National Security said about the latest clash amid a new chapter of a two-decade civil war.

Air Force jets also bombed rebel targets around 16 km further north of the defence line, but there no immediate details of casualties.

The Tigers said only seven of their fighters were injured in the fighting, that none were killed, and that they had repulsed the attack and were still in control of the ''border'' that separates their territory from government-controlled areas.

Nordic truce monitors had not visited the area and it was not immediately possible to independently confirm either side's claims.

Earlier today the military said security forces had found torture cells at a captured camp of the Tamil Tiger rebels in the eastern district of Ampara, but the rebels dismissed the accusation as lies.

The foes have repeatedly accused each other of widespread human rights violations.

The military posted photographs on its Web site showing small concrete cells with kennel-like iron grills which it said were used to keep rebel deserters and informants at one of 15 rebel camps overrun this month.

Such cells have previously been found at other rebel camps in the northeast, military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe hsaid. Again there was no independent confirmation.

The military also said the commandos had found a cannabis crop and the remains of elephants which suggested they were killed for their tusks.

The Tigers laughed off the accusations, saying they didn't have any bases in the area and denied torture cells existed anywhere in areas held by them.

''The government is desperately in need of some successful stories ... They may have walked in to some huts and not bases, because our bases are far from there,'' rebel military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan said by telephone from their northern stronghold.

In a separate incident in northern Vanuniya district, two policemen were killed in a suspected rebel ambush with a roadside bomb on Tuesday, the latest in a litany of such deadly attacks.

The Tigers vowed to resume their fight for an independent state for minority Tamils in the north and east after the government rejected their demands for a separate homeland, and analysts fear a new chapter in a war that has killed more than 67,000 people since 1983 could escalate.

REUTERS SP VV1614