By Xinhua
Colombo : At least 15 rebels and two soldiers were killed as heavy fighting broke out between Tamil Tiger rebels and the government troops in the northern Jaffna peninsula early Monday, the Sri Lankan army said.
Officials from the Media Centre for National Security said the army launched an attack against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels around 2:30 a.m. at Nagarkovil in the Jaffna peninsula, killing 15 and injuring 30 others.
Two soldiers were killed and nine were injured in the gun battle, the officials said, and added that the troops destroyed 24 rebel bunkers during the offensive.
Some 44 civilians have been killed by the rebels in a series of attacks in the southeast of the country since the government officially abandoned the six-year-old Norway-backed ceasefire Jan 16.
Army Commander Sarath Fonseka and senior government leaders have predicted that the rebels would be crushed by the end of 2008.
The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, which had been monitoring the truce since 2002, said in a statement last Wednesday that it “is absolutely convinced that this complex conflict cannot be solved by military means”.
Analysts predict more violence in the island’s separatist armed conflict in the aftermath of the government’s decision to abrogate the truce.
Claiming discrimination at the hands of the Sinhala majority, the LTTE has been fighting against the government since the mid-1980s to establish a separate homeland for the minority Tamils in the north and east.