At least 56 Tamil Tiger rebels and four government troops have been killed in heavy fighting across Sri Lanka’s embattled north over the weekend, the Defence Ministry said on Sunday. Helicopter gunships were deployed against suspected Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam strongholds in the coastal district of Mannar on Saturday, the ministry said.
Sri Lankan troops killed 38 Tamil Tiger rebels for the loss of four soldiers in fresh fighting in the island’s north, the military said on Friday. Thursday’s fighting came as the military captured stretches of Tiger-held terrain in the north-western district of Mannar as part of a wider strategy to gradually retake the Tigers’ northern stronghold and win a 25-year civil war.
Sri Lankan troops captured stretches of Tamil Tiger-held terrain in the island’s north-west on Tuesday, killing seven rebels in clashes that took the two-day death toll to 23, the military said. Fighter jets bombed the Tigers’ de facto state for a second day running, hitting a rebel artillery position and an underground munitions store, the air force said.