By Xinhua
Colombo : Three Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in an attack launched by the army in Sri Lanka’s north, the military said Thursday.
The Media Centre for National Security said in a statement that the army carried out an attack against a group of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels attempting to breach the Forward Defence Lines at Killali in the northern Jaffna peninsula Wednesday night.
Three rebels were killed and two others were injured in the battle, said the statement, adding that two soldiers were also injured.
Clashes between LTTE rebels and government troops have been occurring frequently in northern Sri Lanka since mid-September.
Claiming discrimination at the hands of the Sinhala majority, the LTTE has been fighting the government since the mid-1980s to establish a separate homeland for the minority Tamils in the north and east of the island.
More than 5,000 people have been killed in the new wave of violence since the end of 2005, making the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire agreement exist only on paper.