Battles flare in Sri Lankan north

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Sri Lanka's military says it has killed 12 Tamil Tiger rebels and wounded 36 others in clashes in the north-west.

Troops fired on rebel positions with artillery and mortars near Mannar. Four soldiers were wounded, the army said.

The rebels said only six Tamil Tigers were killed and the army had sustained heavy casualties. The competing claims could not be independently verified.

Government forces have made gains from the rebels in the east of the island and want to do the same in the north.

'Firing at civilians'

The military said they launched the attack in Mannar at 0500 local time in an area from where Tamil Tigers routinely attack government forces with mortars.

"The army confronted a group of Tamil Tiger cadres. They were firing artillery at civilians," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara was quoted by news agency Reuters as saying.

Mannar is on the edge of a swathe of territory held by Tigers in the north where they run a civil administration.

On Monday, the army said it had killed at least 20 rebels in fighting in the Jaffna peninsula in the north.

The rebels said only four of their fighters had been killed.

Meanwhile in separate developments, the military says a roadside bomb killed two civilians in the Jaffna peninsula, while a third was killed in firing near Trincomalee in the east.

Fighting has risen over the past year, with thousands of people killed. A 2002 truce exists now only on paper.

The rebels want independence for the minority Tamil community in the north and east, who they say are discriminated against by majority Sinhalese.