Sri Lankan air force jets bombed separatist Tamil Tiger positions today after fighting killed 34 people, and a grenade blast in a prison wounded seven people.
The jets struck a "Sea Tigers" naval outpost in Pooneryn and a mortar position at Nachikudah, where the army is advancing, an Air Force spokesman said.
The military said battles at various places along a frontline in the north killed 33 rebels and one soldier yesterday, during a thrust to capture the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) symbolic capital of Kilinochchi.
Sixteen rebels and 26 soldiers were wounded in the same combat, the military said.
The government has intensified advances in the insurgents' northern heartland in recent weeks, part of a push to end a 25-year old civil war since the official scrapping of an ill-observed ceasefire in January.
Early today, police said a hand grenade blast at a prison in the eastern city of Batticaloa wounded seven prisoners, most of them suspected Tamil Tigers.
The rebels, who want to create a homeland for the minority ethnic Tamil people of the Indian Ocean island nation, today accused the government of killing a farmer and a boy with a mine in Vavuniya district.
The military denied attacking civilians.
Reuters