COLOMBO - Fourteen Tamil Tigers and a Sri Lankan soldier were killed in a series of firefights over the weekend and on Monday in the restive north, the military said as it began resettling 29,000 refugees in captured rebel terrain.Troops killed seven Tigers in a fierce clash in the northern district of Vavuniya on Sunday, while six others were killed in separate incidents on Saturday. Troops shot dead one rebel early on Monday. “In total, 14 Tiger cadres were killed since Saturday,” military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said. “We lost one of our soldiers.”
The Tigers were not immediately available for comment, but analysts say both sides have tended to overstate enemy losses and play down their own.