TAMIL rebels yesterday sank a Sri Lankan navy gunboat with 40 troops on board as army reinforcements battled to rescue a strategic base under heavy attack from rebels who claim to have killed 500 soldiers, military officials said.
A rebel Sea Tiger naval wing suicide boat rammed the gunboat that was supporting troops landing to reinforce defenders of the besieged Mullaitivu army camp, they said.
It was not immediately clear how many casualties there were in the naval attack.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) claimed they killed 500 government soldiers when they overran the Mullaitivu camp, 280 km from Colombo, in a pre dawn assault on Thursday.
The rebels said in a statement they lost 120 fighters in the assault.
A military spokesman, Brig Sarath Munasinghe dismissed the rebel claim but said there was not yet any official word on army casualties a day after the attack.
"We do not know our casualties. We can tell only when reinforcements reach," he said.
The bulk of the more than 1,000 troops manning Mullaitivu were still there, Brig Munasinghe said, and the Tigers had not completely overrun the camp.
Brig Munasinghe said the Tigers lost large numbers of fighters in the attack. A Tiger statement said more than 1,000 fighters were involved in the assault, which smashed through the camp's defences.
Brig Munasinghe said he could not confirm media reports, apparently based on army interception of rebel radio traffic, that a Tiger chieftain, Mr Velupillai Prabhakaran was wounded in the attack.
A statement from the Tigers denied that Mr Prabhakaran was wounded.
It said fierce fighting was continuing near Alampil, south of Mullaitivu, where army reinforcements landed by helicopter to try to relieve the camp.
The latest attacks come a week before the 13th anniversary of island wide anti Tamil riots that began the ethnic conflict in which the government says more than 50,000 people have died.