Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger rebels exchanged mortar and artillery fire across their northern front lines yesterday, as the military said the death toll from five days of heavy fighting rose to 148 and the country spiralled closer to all-out war.

As fighting raged in northern Jaffna peninsula, a human rights official said at least 50 ethnic Tamil youths and young adults are still missing after disappearing in the area last month.

The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) hit an army camp in the east using long-range mortar fire, and troops retaliated using artillery, official sources said. There were no immediate reports of casualties, they said.

Similar attacks continued across a de facto frontline in the northern peninsula of Jaffna, killing at least 33 soldiers at the weekend, the army said.

It said another 130 troops were wounded while advancing into territory held by the Tigers.

There was no immediate word from the Tigers about the casualties while the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com claimed the military suffered heavy losses.

Neither of the claims could be independently verified.

Government soldiers have advanced up to a kilometre into rebel territory in Jaffna and captured the guerillas' forward defence line at Muhamalai, an official at the Media Centre for National Security said.

More than 400 people have gone missing in the army-controlled Jaffna peninsula since December, Sri Lanka's independent Human Rights Commission said.

Thurairaja Surendraraja, co-ordinator for the commission, said 67 missing-person complaints were received in August, and that the fate of 50 of those people - age 30 and under - are still unknown.

Military spokesman Brig Prasad Samarasinghe said the military will co-operate with any commission inquiry into alleged disappearances.

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