Sri Lankan troops capture rebel position, 16 killed

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan troops have killed 16 Tamil Tiger rebels and captured a rebel-held position in the island's north, officials said on Saturday.

A military spokesman said 17 people were injured on Saturday when Tamil Tiger rebels threw a hand grenade into a crowded street in northern Sri Lanka.

"Seventeen civilians, including six females and two children, were injured when LTTE terrorists lobbed a hand grenade into a crowded street in Vavuniya," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara.

Doctors said the death toll in Friday's suicide attack in the island's capital Colombo had risen to 11 from 10. Most of the dead were police officers.

They were killed when a suicide bomber crashed his motorbike into a police bus.

The military said 16 Tamil Tigers were killed on Friday in fighting in northern Jaffna, Vavuniya, Polonnaruwa and Mannar. Four government soldiers were injured in the clashes.

The military also said troops had captured a rebel-held area in the northwestern district of Mannar on Saturday after six days of fighting.

Fighting between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has intensified since the government formally pulled out of a six-year-old ceasefire pact in January, though a renewed civil war has been raging since 2006.

The LTTE, which is fighting for an independent state for minority Tamils in the north and east of the island, has not commented on the latest fighting.

Independent confirmation of battlefield casualties is not possible because of lack of access to the area but each side is known to exaggerate the other's losses.

According to a compilation of military data, some 360 rebels have been killed in fighting in May with the loss of 41 soldiers. An estimated 70,000 people have been killed in the 25-year civil war.

Analysts say the military has the upper hand in the latest phase of the long-running war given superior air power, strength of numbers and swathes of terrain captured in the island's east. But they still see no clear winner on the horizon.

The Tigers are regularly hitting back with suicide attacks increasingly targeting civilians and roadside bombs, experts and the military say, which have deterred tourists and worried some investors in the $27 billion economy.

(Reporting By Ranga Sirilal)