Scores killed in Sri Lanka battles
07/03/2008| IslamWeb
Sri Lankan troops have clashed with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in northern and northwestern
Thursday's fighting killed at least 38 rebels and four soldiers in the northwestern district of Mannar, the military said on Friday.
The latest violence came as the island's government was accused by the rebels of being behind hundreds of so-called disappearances.
Territory recovered
A Sri Lankan army spokesman said that the fighting occurred along a border that separated rebel-held terrain from government territory in the northern districts of Vavuniya,
According to the Sri Lankan defense ministry, security forces had captured major locations from the rebels in the coastal district of Mannar over the past two days.
The fighting occurred the same day when the rebels accused the military of blowing up a key rebel-backed parliamentarian, with a roadside bomb in northern
However, the military denied any hand in the attack.
Truce scrapped
Earlier, in January this year, the Sri Lankan government had scrapped a truce pact with the rebels, accusing them of using the ceasefire to re-arm themselves.
Three Sri Lankan members of parliament have also been killed this year, including the one on Thursday.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lankan president, has taken a tough stand against the Tamil tigers and aims to defeat them by the end of this year.
Map of Sri Lanka
Al-Jazeera