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50 armymen killed in battle, claims Tamil Tigers

COLOMBO: Intense battles raged in Sri Lanka as Tamil Tiger guerrillas and government forces escalated attacks inflicting heavy losses on each side, the rebels and defence officials said on Friday.

The separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said over their clandestine Voice of Tigers Radio on Friday they killed 50 government soldiers for the loss of four of their own righters.

The guerrillas also claimed they captured the bodies of 16 soldiers and were planning to return them.

Defence sources said the Tigers made several attempts to breach a defence line of the Elephant pass military base at the entrance to the northern peninsula of Jaffna.

The sources said the army estimates to have killed about 18 Tiger cadres in that battle alone.

Officials said the rebels also used two boats operated by members of an elite suicide squad to ram two navy craft in the Jaffna lagoon on Thursday.

Several sailors escaped with injuries and security forces had also destroyed another craft of the LTTE that tried to attack a group of navy patrol craft, the sources said.

The battle came as army troops clashed with the LTTE near Thannankillappu in the Jaffna peninsula where two soldiers were killed and several others were wounded.

The defence ministry on Thursday said they deployed helicopter gunships to pound Tamil Tiger positions on Wednesday.

There has been heavy fighting in the region since Christmas day. Security forces in December 1995 captured Jaffna, where the LTTE ran a de facto separate state for nearly five years.

The upsurge in fighting comes after the December 18 assassination attempt on President Chandrika Kumaratunga who returned to the island on Thursday after medical treatment in London.

The authorities have blamed the LTTE for the suicide bomb attack in which the president may end up losing the sight in her right eye.

Tiger guerrillas are leading a drawn out campaign for independence in the island's northern and eastern regions, More than 55,000 people have been killed in the past 27 years. AFP