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Sri Lanka rebels say 130 soldiers killed
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-17 15:21
COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels say they have killed 130 troops in a series of battles, the pro-rebel website TamilNet.com reported on Wednesday.

The report comes a day after the military had said it killed 125 guerrillas in the same fighting.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) previously said their fighters had killed 40 troops while repelling a four-pronged assault to the west and southwest of their self-declared capital of Kilinochchi.

"More than 300 soldiers were wounded in the heavy battle that raged throughout the day till 4 pm on Tuesday on four main localities and along a wide stretch of the Kilinochchi frontiers," TamilNet quoted the Tigers' peace secretariat director S. Puleedevan as saying.                                                          

Kilinochchi is a strategic target of a military increasingly confident of ending the 25-year conflict. The military has said it is within 1.5 km (1 mile) of the town's outskirts, fighting through a maze of earthen trenches and defences.

On Tuesday, the military said it had killed 125 rebels and wounded 250. It said 25 soldiers were killed, 10 were missing and 160 were wounded in the battles, in an increasingly rare statement of casualty figures.

It made no immediate comment on Wednesday.

Verifying battlefield statistics is difficult since both sides bar independent access to the areas of the war zone they control. Both sides have routinely distorted the figures to their advantage in the past.