15 killed in fighting in Sri Lanka

Separatist Tamil rebels attacked a military post in northern Sri Lanka with mortars and gunfire early Friday, sparking an hourlong battle that killed at least 12 combatants. Later, soldiers killed three rebels in the country's east.

The attacks came a day after the government held a formal military ceremony celebrating its recapture of the east from the rebels. The Tamil rebels, who still control a virtual state in the north, have vowed to retaliate for the military's offensive in the east.

About 2:30 a.m. Friday, the rebels struck, attacking soldiers guarding the front lines in the Mannar district separating government-held areas from rebel territory in the north.

The military repelled the attack, which killed three soldiers and wounded four others, said Lt. Col. Upali Rajapakse, a senior military officer. He said troops killed at least nine rebels and wounded 24.

However, rebels said they killed 10 soldiers and lost only four of their fighters. It was not possible to reconcile the conflicting death tolls given by the two sides. Each often inflates the other's casualties and lowers its own.

Rebel military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan said the attack on the army post was meant as a pre-emptive strike. "This camp was causing a lot of harassment to our fighters," he said.

Steinar Sveinsson, a spokesman for the Scandinavian mission monitoring a tattered 2002 truce, said he had no information about the latest clash.

Also Friday, army troops killed three rebels in the eastern Batticaloa district, said a military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The official said the insurgents were fleeing the Thoppigala wilderness, which was captured by government forces last week.

Fighting between the government and the rebels has spiked over the last 20 months, though neither side has formally withdrawn from the 2002 cease-fire.

The rebels have been fighting since 1983 for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, a predominantly Hindu group that has faced decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese-controlled governments. About 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting.