Sri Lanka says kills 15 rebels in latest fighting

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan troops killed 15 Tamil Tiger rebels in an assault on rebel positions in the northern Jaffna peninsula on Monday, the military said, taking the rebel death toll from three days of clashes to 89.

The rebels were not immediately available for comment and there are no independent accounts of the battles that have escalated following the formal abrogation of a six-year truce by the government last week.

"The Army launched an attack and completely destroyed 24 LTTE terrorist bunkers, killed 15 and injured 30 terrorists in Nagarkovil area in Jaffna today morning," said a spokesman at the media centre for national security, asking not to be named in line with the policy.

Two soldiers were killed and nine wounded in the fighting, he said, the latest in a series of battles along a "border" that separates government territory from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) de facto state in the north.

The raid on the bunkers followed fighting over the weekend in Jaffna, the northern district of Vavuniya and northwestern district of Mannar in which 74 rebels were killed, according to a compilation of the figures provided by the military.

A local commander was among the rebels dead, the government said.

The end of the ceasefire has opened the way for a military push for the Tigers' northern stronghold and a bloody escalation in a 25-year civil war, analysts say.

The government said the rebels, fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east, used the truce to regroup and rearm.

Nordic truce monitors, however, blamed both the rebels and the military of repeatedly violating the terms of the ceasefire.

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

(Reporting by Ranga Sirilal; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)