Pair of Battles in Sri Lanka Kill 174 Rebels, 27 Soldiers

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka â€”  More than 170 Tamil separatists and 27 troops were killed in two battles in what appeared to be the deadliest 24-hour period of Sri Lanka’s civil war, military officials said Tuesday.

On the Jaffna Peninsula in the north early Tuesday, troops beat back a Tamil guerrilla counterattack on soldiers who had advanced into rebel-held territory this week.

The military recovered 144 rebel bodies, but as many as 200 guerrillas may have been killed and 250 injured, said Maj. Tilak Dunuwille, a military spokesman. The insurgents often remove bodies of rebels from the scene of battles.

The reports could not be independently confirmed.

Nine soldiers were killed and 19 others wounded, Dunuwille said.

In the ocean off the nearby town of Mullaittivu in the northeast, rebels attacked naval ships carrying troops Monday night and killed 15 soldiers and three sailors, the military said in a statement.

Fifty-four soldiers and sailors were wounded aboard the Rana Gaja ship, which was badly damaged by gunfire, the military said.

Navy gunboats shot and sank eight rebel boats, killing at least 30 guerrillas 185 miles northeast of Colombo, the statement said.

The death toll in the two battles was the highest in a single 24-hour period in the 12-year war, which the rebels are using to fight for a homeland for the Tamil minority.

On July 28, 182 rebels and two soldiers died in a counteroffensive on four military camps in the northeast.

In Tuesday’s land battle, rebels in two groups attacked troops near the towns of Ponnalaikadduwan, Navakerri and Puthur, 195 miles north of Colombo, the military said. Fighting raged for four hours before the attack was repulsed by troops backed by heavy artillery fire from Palali, the main military base on the Jaffna Peninsula, said Dunuwille.

Tamil rebels accuse Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese, who control the government and the military, of discrimination in education and jobs. More than 36,000 people have been killed in the war.

The rebels said 50,000 civilians have been displaced in the fresh upsurge in the separatist conflict.

“Thousands of civilians are fleeing their homes toward Chavakachcheri [south of the city of Jaffna],� rebel radio said.