Deadly Sri Lanka clashes spike ahead of rains

Sri Lankan troops claimed they have killed 45 Tamil rebels in the past week as they step up attacks ahead of monsoon rains that will make fighting harder.

Security forces have been trying to push into territory held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the past week amid intense resistance by the guerrillas, official sources said.

"As the rains set in by October, it will be difficult to use artillery and tanks," a military official said. "Before the monsoon breaks there will be increased skirmishes along the front lines."

Government figures show over 45 guerrillas have been killed in the past week while the military lost six troopers, as both sides intensified artillery and mortar bomb attacks across their defence lines.

Few casualties were reported by both sides in the previous week.

In the northern peninsula of Jaffna, a road side blast Thursday killed two civilians and wounded another 15 people, including two policemen, the defence ministry said, accusing the Tigers of setting off the blast.

In the island's northwest, a Roman Catholic priest was killed when his vehicle was hit by a blast on Wednesday. The Tigers accused the military of killing the clergyman while the government blamed the rebels.

The defence ministry said the rebels had also tried to infiltrate military positions in Jaffna peninsula and to push further into the northern Wanni region, parts of which form a mini state run by the Tigers.

But defence columnist Namal Perera said security forces had stepped up operations in the past week in a bid to push back Tigers along two fronts in the north, meeting fierce rebel resistance.

The defence ministry's latest figures show 5,415 people have been killed in total in insurgency related violence since December 2005 when a Norwegian brokered true began to unravel.

The figure consists of 1,271 security forces, 3,284 rebels and 860 civilians.

The Tigers have rejected the military's claims but have not said how many fighters they lost during the same period. However the guerrillas say 1,924 civilians have been killed since February 2002.

There is no independent verification of the casualties.

The ethnic conflict, in which the rebels are fighting for an independent homeland for the Tamil minority on this Sinhalese majority island, has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 1972.