Lanka's warring parties lock in fierce fighting

Sri Lanka's troops and Tamil rebels were locked in fierce fighting yesterday in the island's north, the two sides said as the top military chief vowed to kill 3,000 guerrillas by June.
Both the military and the Tiger guerrillas claimed to have inflicted heavy losses against the other in the latest weekend fighting along the de facto border separating the mini state run by the Tigers.
The defence ministry said troops killed at least 33 members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and wounded another 38 in the latest battles in the district of Mannar.
The ministry placed its own losses at six soldiers wounded, but the Tigers said they killed at least 20 government soldiers and wounded another 40. The rebels placed their own losses at three guerrillas killed.
"The Sri Lanka armed forces fighting units are already beaten back in two of the three fronts," Tiger spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan said in a statement.
"Both sides use heavy artillery, multi-barrel rocket launchers and small mortars to provide tactical support fire to respective troops. The shelling duel and firefights still continue in those areas," the statement said.
Both sides regularly make sharply differing claims about casualties and independent verification is rarely possible. Journalists are not allowed into rebel-held areas in the north.
The state-run Sunday Observer reported that the military planned to "eliminate" the separatist Tamil Tigers in the next six months with stepped up military action in the New Year.
"There are around 3,000 LTTE terrorists remaining and the military targets to annihilate them within the first six months of the next year," the newspaper quoted army chief Sarath Fonseka as saying.
Earlier Sri Lanka's defence secretary said the government should formally pull out of a ceasefire with Tamil Tiger rebels amid escalating fighting in the island, a state-run daily reported Saturday.
A 2002 Norwegian-brokered truce began to unravel in December 2005 and both sides have blamed each other for the mounting violence, which has claimed over 6,000 lives since then, according to government figures.
"The ceasefire agreement exists only on paper. Obviously we can see there is no ceasefire," Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who is President Mahinda Rajapakse's younger brother, told the Daily News.
"It has become a joke," the defence secretary said.
Sri Lanka is pressing for a military victory over the rebels, fighting for a separate state for the ethnic Tamil minority in the Sinhalese-majority nation. Tens of thousands have died on both sides since the conflict erupted in 1972.