Ten soldiers and at least 15 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in
heaving fighting erupted Saturday night between Sri Lanka's
government troops and the rebels in the northern Vavuniya district,
defense officials said Sunday.
Military spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) began to fire mortars and artillery
targeting the Vavuniya Forward Defense Line (FDL) at 9:30 PM (16:00
GMT) and the Army hit back causing severe casualties to the
rebels.
Samarasinghe said 10 soldiers were killed and another 20 were
injured in the fierce battle which lasted until Sunday morning.
He said at least 15 bodies of LTTE cadres were found in the
battle field, some of them being child soldiers.
"The LTTE's communication intercepted by the military showed
that 52 rebels were killed in the battle," said the spokesman.
He also said an ammunition dump and an armored personnel carrier
were hit by the rebel fire.
However, the LTTE's artillery and mortar attack has been
successfully repulsed by the security forces, defense officials
said.
The pro-LTTE website TamilNet said 20 government troopers were
killed, 40 wounded in a commando raid launched by the LTTE on
Saturday night targeting Vavuniya Mannar border villages where the
Army had recently advanced its FDL.
The website quoted LTTE Military Spokesman Irasiah
Ilanthirayanas saying that the mission was successful in restoring
their FDL positions.
The upsurge in the island's ethnic separatist violence since the
end of 2005 has so far claimed nearly 5,000 lives.
Claiming discrimination at the hands of the majority ethnic
Sinhalese-dominated government, the LTTE has been fighting for an
independent homeland for Sri Lanka's 12.5 percent Tamil minority
since the 1970s.
(Xinhua News Agency June 4, 2007)
