Sri Lanka says 12 killed in clash, jets bomb rebels

COLOMBO, July 5 (Reuters) Two Sri Lankan troops and 10 Tamil Tiger fighters died in a clash near defence lines in the island's far north today, the military said, as fighter jets pounded suspected rebel targets in jungle in the east.

''There was a confrontation close to the forward defence line west of Omanthai,'' military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said, referring to the northern district of Vavuniya, where fighting is now focused amid a new chapter in a two-decade civil war.

''The air force has taken four suspected Tamil Tiger locations in the west of Thoppigala in support of ground troops,'' he added, referring to eastern jungle where troops seek to drive out rebels hemmed into ever-decreasing pockets of territory.

The violence comes on the heels of near daily land and sea battles, ambushes and killings in recent months and as the separatist Tigers today paid homage to their elite Black Tiger suicide wing on the 20th anniversary of its first suicide attack.

REUTERS AGL RK1936