Sri Lanka kills 9 rebels in northwest clashes

Colombo, Aug 27: Fresh fighting between troops and separatist Tamil Tiger guerrillas has killed nine insurgents and wounded five soldiers in the island's northwest, the military said today.

Troops fought two separate battles with rebels yesterday in the northwestern district of Mannar and on the border of neighbouring Vavuniya, where fighting is now focused after the fall of the rebels' last bastion in the east.

''Our troops confronted two batches of LTTE cadres coming towards their front line,'' said military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe. ''Nine of their cadres were killed. Five soldiers were injured.'' The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who are seeking to carve out an independent state in north and east Sri Lanka, were not immediately available for comment.

Samarsinghe said 1,258 military personnel, police and village guards have been killed since December 2005 and more than 2,000 Tiger fighters have died as the island slid back into a two-decade civil war that has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983.

Nordic truce monitors estimate around 5,000 people, including security forces personnel, rebels and civilians have been killed since the end of 2005, when violence resumed after nearly four years of ceasefire.

Yesterday's fighting came as security forces defused three suspected Tamil Tiger rebel bombs, including one in the ancient central hill capital of Kandy where thousands of people are attending a Buddhist pageant.

The discovery of a bomb in Kandy came just days before senior Myanmar military junta figure Lieutenant-General Thein Sein was due to attend the annual pageant on Tuesday with President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Reuters
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