COLOMBO (AFP) — Tamil Tiger rebels Monday shelled Sri Lanka's main northern military base, disrupting a vital air link to the troubled region as the military said it killed 82 guerrillas over the weekend.
An aircraft carrying top defence officials and military brass was turned away from the Jaffna military airfield as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) pounded the region with heavy artillery, officials said.
They said the Palaly airfield at the northern edge of the Jaffna peninsula was shut for military and civilian aircraft as the artillery fire and retaliatory strikes continued for about two hours.
"We heard heavy shelling for hours during the morning," a local resident in Jaffna, 250 miles (400 kilometers) north of here, said when contacted by telephone on Monday afternoon.
Telephone lines to the area were disrupted while the firing was going on in the morning, residents said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Jaffna peninsula is the northern tip of Sri Lanka and controlled by the government, but cut off from the rest of the country by Tiger rebels. It is reliant on supplies from planes and ships.
Aircraft pounded suspected artillery gun positions of the Tigers in the northern mainland, 16 miles (25 kilometres) away from the Palaly runway.
"About 15 shells had been fired," at the Palaly base, a defence official here said. "Counter attacks are taking place."
A military statement, meanwhile, said 39 suspected Tiger rebels had been killed in a string of separate clashes in the north of Sri Lanka on Sunday, on top of 43 killed on Saturday, pushing the weekend rebel toll to 82.
Since the start of the month, the ministry has claimed government forces have killed 748 rebels against just 28 soldiers.
Both sides give wildly varying casualty figures which cannot be independently verified, as the government bars journalists from visiting frontline areas and rebel-held territory.
The government pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered truce with the rebels this month, underscoring its recent statements that it has the upper hand in the drawn-out conflict.
Tens of thousands of people have died since the rebels launched their campaign to carve out an independent homeland for minority Tamils in the majority Sinhalese nation in 1972.
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