Sri Lankan troops used war planes and long-range weapons to attack suspected Tamil Tiger positions as fresh fighting broke out early on Saturday, the defence ministry said.Fighter jets pounded suspected Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) locations in the north of the island, where heavy artillery duels killed at least one soldier and wounded another 12, the ministry said.
Both sides traded heavy weapons fire across a defence line in Vavuniya district, the ministry said. “It is confirmed that many LTTE terrorists were killed,” the ministry said in a statement. There was no immediate comment from the Tigers.
The clash Saturday at Thampanai came three days after security forces wrested control over the final rebel base in the east of the island. “We bombed the LTTE camp in Mannar and it was very successful, lot of casualties,” Air Force spokesman Group Captain Ajantha De Silva told Reuters.
The air raids came hours after the Tigers killed one soldier and injured 11 in the northern district of Vavuniya, which borders rebel territory. “The LTTE were firing mortars and artillery and we confronted them ... there are a lot of LTTE casualties,” military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe told Reuters. “We also had one soldier killed and 11 injured,” he said.
The LTTE admitted on Thursday losing Thoppigala in the district of Batticaloa, but said it would now revert to guerrilla tactics in the troubled region.
Fighting across Sri Lanka has worsened since the breakdown of a 2002 truce around 19 months ago.
Sri LankaÂ’s 35-year-old conflict has claimed more than 60,000 lives, and over 5,200 people have been killed in fighting in the past 19 months, according to government figures. The rebels are fighting for an independent homeland for the Tamil minority on the Sinhalese-majority island.
Tiger political wing leader SP Thamilselvan told Reuters in an interview that peace was “not possible” as long as Mahinda Rajapaksa remained president, pouring cold water on international efforts to halt the two-decade conflict.