Fighting kills 40 in northern Sri Lanka

Clashes between government forces and Tamil Tiger separatists killed at least 40 combatants across northern Sri Lanka, the military said Sunday, as air force jets bombed a rebel commanders’ camp.

On Sunday air force jets bombed a camp occupied by rebel commanders in Mannar district, the military said in a statement. It did not give details of casualties or damage caused by the raid.

Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan did not respond to calls seeking comment on the military’s claims. It was not possible to obtain independent accounts of the battles because reporters are barred from the war zone. Often the two sides exaggerate each other’s casualty figures while underplaying their own losses.

The pro-rebel TamilNet website reported that insurgents killed three soldiers across the defense line in Vavuniya district. The report did not comment on the government’s claim that 39 rebels were killed.

As fighting raged in the north, a bus blast just south of the capital, Colombo, wounded 14 people early Saturday.

The explosion in Mount Lavinia town might have inflicted much worse damage but for the vigilance of a passenger who spotted an unattended parcel on the vehicle and alerted the driver, who stopped the bus and ordered everyone off, said military spokesman Brig.

Udaya Nanayakkara.

“Within minutes the bomb exploded,” said passenger Ajith Prasanna Peiris.

The bus driver, who was among the wounded, managed to move the bus several metres (yards) away from his passengers and escaped from the vehicle just before the explosion, Nanayakkara said.

Nanayakkara blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels for the bus attack Saturday. Bomb blasts blamed on the Tamil Tiger guerrillas have killed at least 19 people and wounded scores more in and around Colombo since January. The rebels did not comment on the blast.

The Tamil Tiger rebels have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent homeland for Sri Lanka’s minority ethnic Tamils after decades of being marginalised by governments controlled by the majority ethnic Sinhalese.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict. (AP)