COLOMBO, 11 October 2007 — Sri Lankan soldiers killed 13 Tamil Tiger rebels in clashes on the northern end of the war-torn island, the military said yesterday.
The fighting broke out in the districts of Jaffna and Mannar, now the focus of the renewed civil war between the state and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who want an independent state for minority ethnic Tamils in the north and east.
“The army killed 10 terrorists who came to attack the Forward Defense Line in Jaffna on Tuesday and another confrontation in Mannar killed two LTTE cadres,” said a military spokesman, adding that three soldiers were wounded in the clash at Mannar.
The military said they had also recovered the body of a Tamil Tiger rebel in the eastern district of Ampara after a confrontation involving police commandos. The LTTE was not immediately available for comment and there was no independent confirmation of how many people were killed or the circumstances. Military analysts say both sides tend to exaggerate enemy losses and play down their own.
The military has launched an offensive to drive the rebels out of Mannar after evicting them from jungle terrain they controlled in the east earlier this year.
Record Defense Spending
Sri Lanka plans to hike overall defense spending by 20 percent to a record $1.48 billion amid a rise in fighting with Tamil Tiger rebels, according to a bill tabled in Parliament yesterday.
Defense spending in calendar 2008 would total 166.44 billion rupees ($1.48 billion), up from an estimate of 139.4 billion rupees in 2007, the appropriation bill showed.
