Sri Lanka says fighter jets bomb rebel training camp

COLOMBO, May 22 (Reuters) Sri Lankan air force jets pounded a Tamil Tiger training camp in the island's north today, the military said, but there was no word on any casualties.

Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said the air force bombed the camp near the town of Mankulam, which lies around (32 km) north of a ''border'' that separates government territory from the rebels' de facto state.

''The target was correctly taken,'' Samarasinghe said. ''We have observed increased movements in the camp. We don't have any details on casualties.'' He said troops killed two insurgents in a separate gunfight near the forward defence lines that skirt the south of the Tigers' northern stronghold overnight, and that the military had recovered a long-abandoned suicide boat in captured rebel territory in the east.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were not immediately available for comment on the air raid and there was no independent confirmation of what the bombs hit. The area around Mankulam is primarily jungle and agricultural land dotted with small settlements.

Around 4,000 people have been killed since last year amid a new chapter in a two-decade civil war in which nearly 70,000 people have died since 1983. The war has spread from the east, where troops evicted the rebels from their stronghold last year, to the north.

The military have vowed to destroy the Tigers' militarily, while the rebels have warned they will launch more air raids by a homegrown air force of light planes smuggled into the country in pieces in their fight for an independent state.

Analysts say that while the military has had the upper hand in recent months, there is no clear winner on the horizon, and they fear the conflict could rumble on for years.

The international community is increasingly frustrated at both sides for ignoring calls to halt a conflict that has also displaced more than 500,000 people from their homes.

Britain and the United States have both suspended some aid over human rights abuses blamed on both sides, and the World Food Programme has attached conditions to some food aid amid fears the government could force some war-displaced to resettle in captured areas against their will.

REUTERS AE SSC1036