Sri Lanka military says 94 killed in clashes

By Ranga Sirilal

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's air force bombed Tamil Tiger positions in the far north while ground battles killed 14 rebels and a government soldier on Monday, taking the death toll in three days of fighting to 94, the military said.

The death toll in the first two days of clashes had stood at 79, including 36 rebels killed by government troops in the north on Sunday.

Those clashes were on the Jaffna peninsula, the northern districts of Vavuniya and Polonnaruwa and the northwestern district of Mannar, and killed 75 rebels and four soldiers, the military said.

A Web site that supports the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels said 15 government soldiers were killed in the Mannar fighting. The military denied the claim.

The military said the Tamil Tigers had fired artillery from the rebel-held area on Monday morning toward the army-controlled northern Jaffna peninsula, separated by rebel territory from the rest of the country, but there were no reports of casualties or property damage.

"There was firing from the ground. To neutralize the fire the air force fighter jets bombed the LTTE artillery gun position in Pooneryn this morning," said air force spokesman Wing Commander Andrew Wijesuriya.

Pilots confirmed the raid was successful, he said.

The military also said 14 rebels were killed in three separate clashes in Mannar on Monday. One government soldier was killed and two others wounded.

LTTE rebels, who seek to carve out an independent state in Sri Lanka's north and east, were not immediately available for comment.

There were no independent accounts of how many people had been killed or what had happened. Analysts say both sides tend to overstate enemy losses and play down their own.

The government has vowed to wipe out the Tigers militarily, setting the stage for what many fear would be a bloody battle for the north.

While the government has had the upper hand in recent months, killing senior rebel figures including the Tigers' political wing leader and military intelligence chief, military analysts say the rebels have retained their strike capability and see no clear winner on the horizon.

The Sri Lankan government scrapped the 2002 truce on January 16, saying the rebels had used it to regroup and re-arm.

Nordic truce monitors, however, accused both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan army of violating the truce.

About 70,000 people have been killed since the war erupted in 1983.

(Editing by Charles Dick)