Sri Lanka says jets bomb 2 rebel camps in far north

COLOMBO, June 28 (Reuters) Sri Lankan fighter jets bombed two Tamil Tiger camps in the island's far north today, the military said, the second batch of air strikes in three days, but there were no immediate details of any casualties.

In a separate incident, two soldiers were killed in the army-held northern Jaffna peninsula by a roadside bomb, the latest in a spree of such attacks in recent months as civil war erupted again after several years of ceasefire.

''We have hit a military base in Mullaithivu (on the northeast coast) -- it is really two camps located close to one another,'' said military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe.

The separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were not immediately available for comment and there was no independent confirmation of what had been hit.

Samarasinghe said troops were clearing booby traps and landmines in jungle in the restive eastern district of Batticaloa, where rebels are hemmed into ever-decreasing pockets of territory in the face of an army offensive.

''There are a lot of landmines there. Yesterday, two of our soldiers lost their legs because of them.'' He said troops were facing only sporadic fire, after weeks of heavy fighting in a major operation to drive the Tigers from territory they held in the east altogether. Fighting is now focused on the north, where the Tigers run a de facto state.

Government officials are eyeing long-delayed local government polls in the east to cement a civil administration in a bid to permanently displace the Tigers from the area, although the island's elections commissioner say no such plans are yet afoot.

The Tigers have warned that while they may have moved geographically, they will use all means to fight for an independent state in the north and east.

And analysts see no clear winner on the horizon and fear a war that has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983 will run on for years.

REUTERS SLD DS1205