By DPA
Colombo : Military forces shot dead 14 rebels in three separate incidents in Sri Lanka as a key road linking government controlled areas and rebel held areas in the northern part of the country remained closed due to fighting between the two sides, officials said Friday.
Ten of the rebels were killed in a confrontation at Omanthai, 250 km north of the capital, when rebels made an attempt to infiltrate a government controlled area and attack security forces Thursday.
Some of the rebels fled when troops pushed them back, but a few hours later they made another attempt to infiltrate the same area from a different direction and two rebels were killed.
A key highway passing through Omanthai has been closed for the past week as fighting between troops and rebels in the area intensified. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) withdrew from the area Wednesday.
In eastern Batticaloa two rebels were killed when security forces returned fire after rebels ambushed a foot patrol.
Earlier Thursday rebels and the navy clashed on an island off the northern Jaffna peninsula. The rebels claimed they overran a navy detachment, but the military contradicted the claim and said they repulsed the pre dawn raid.
Rebels claimed they had killed 35 sailors, but the military spokesman in Colombo Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said only four sailors and 18 rebels had been killed in the attack.
The Tamil Tigers conceded that four of their cadres were killed. Due to the remote location there has been no independent verification of the death toll.
A bomb planted by rebels exploded in Colombo Thursday as an army bus passed by, killing one soldier and injuring six others.
Fighting in the north and eastern parts of Sri Lanka has escalated during the past 16 months. More than 4,200 people have been killed.