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32 soldiers, 75 Tigers killed as LTTE truce ends

Hours after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ended its unilateral truce, intense fighting broke out Wednesday in northern Sri Lanka killing 32 soldiers and 75 rebels.

Over 200 government troops were wounded in the pre-dawn offensive in the Jaffna peninsula, defence officials said in Colombo.

They said hundreds of Tamil Tigers were also injured in the fighting.

A military spokesman said that 32 soldiers were killed.

He said messages of the rebels monitored by the army indicated that 75 LTTE cadres could have been killed and hundreds injured, as the troops expanded their area of control with a foray into rebel-held territory south of Eluthumadduval in the Jaffna peninsula.

The LTTE had deployed their 120 mm and 81 mm mortars to keep the forces at bay, but the ground troops advanced with heavy artillery backing them, and occasional sorties by combat jets.

Codenamed 'Operational Agni Khela,' the latest offensive was aimed at expanding the army's territorial control on the path towards Elephant Pass, the same objective with which they set out in January in a two-stage operation and captured eight sq km of territory.

The January offensive had led to heavy casualties on both sides.

As the two sides were Wednesday engaged in fierce fighting, a parcel bomb exploded in the high-security zone near the residence of President Chandrika Kumaratunga wounding a soldier who was inspecting it.

The rebels called off the four-month-long ceasefire at midnight Tuesday night accusing the government of pursuing war and not reciprocating their peace gestures.

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