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COLOMBO — Sri Lanka's navy fought a fierce battle Saturday against Tamil Tigers in the northern sea, destroying six rebel boats and killing 17 guerillas with the help of air strikes by military bomber planes, officials said.
Navy spokesman D.K.P Dassanayake said the sea battle took place in the early morning off northern Jaffna peninsula when the navy observed a cluster of rebel boats and attacked them.
The clash killed 14 rebels and destroyed four boats, while five sailors were wounded in the fighting, he said.
Air force planes later chased fleeing rebel boats and bombed them at their landing point, destroying two more boats and killing three more rebels, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.
The Tamil Tigers could not be contacted for comment because communication lines to rebel-held territory have been severed.
However the rebel-affiliated TamilNet Web site reported that rebel suicide fighters had sunk two navy vessels and damaged another. Seven rebels were killed in the mission, the report said.
About 20 boats took part in the attack, the report said.
It is difficult to get independent accounts of battles in Sri Lanka's civil war because reporters are barred from the war zone.
The sea battle Saturday came amid intensified military attacks against the rebels on land. Authorities have vowed to crush the rebels and end their decades-old campaign for a separate state in the island nation.
In Friday's battles near the rebel headquarters of Kilinochchi and the northeastern front of Welioya, troops seized three rebel bunkers, causing heavy damage to the rebels, a military statement said without releasing casualty details.
The Tamil Tigers have fought since 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, who have suffered marginalization at the hands of successive governments controlled by ethnic Sinhalese.
More than 70,000 people have been killed in the violence.
