COLOMBO, Jan 19: Battles between government troops and Tamil Tiger fighters killed 35 rebels and one soldier along the front lines in northern Sri Lanka, the military said on Saturday, as violence continued to escalate following the government’s withdrawal from a cease-fire.

Soldiers destroyed three rebel bunkers and killed 12 guerrillas on Friday in Mannar district, southwest of the rebels’ northern headquarters, said military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara. One soldier was wounded in the fighting, he said.

In nearby Vavuniya district army troops killed nine insurgents, while on the northern Jaffna peninsula two separate confrontations killed eight rebels, he said.

Nanayakkara said another clash in the north-eastern village of Welioya left six rebels and one soldier dead.There was no immediate comment from the rebels.

Each side often gives different accounts of the fighting, exaggerating enemy casualties while underreporting its own. Independent confirmation is not possible since the battle zone is a restricted area.

Violence has intensified in this Indian Ocean island nation since the government announced two weeks ago that it would scrap the six-year-old cease-fire between the government and rebels a pact that had largely been ignored in recent years. The truce officially ended on Wednesday.

Senior military officials have vowed to dismantle the rebels’ de facto state in parts of the north this year and then hunt down the remaining rebels fighting in the jungle.

The latest reported infantry clashes across the country’s embattled north came a day after suspected Tamil Tigers killed 10 ethnic Sinhalese civilians in southern Sri Lanka, the military said.

The Tigers, listed as a terror organisation by the US and European Union, routinely deny responsibility for such attacks.

The fighting also coincided with a visit by a top US Navy official who reaffirmed American support for the government’s efforts to fight the rebels.

Adm Robert F. Willard, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, ended a two-day visit to Sri Lanka on Friday during which he “reaffirmed the support of the United States to Sri Lanka in defending against terrorist activity through co-operation on maritime security,” the US Embassy said.

Willard met with President Mahinda Rajapaksa and senior military officials and discussed US help in countering the Tigers, the embassy said in a statement, without giving details.

Though scrapping the 2002 truce has little direct impact on the raging war, the government’s decision to end the deal was criticised by peace mediators and foreign governments, who worried it would make it even more difficult to end the conflict.

More than 400 people have been killed in renewed violence across the country since government’s withdrawal from the truce, according to military figures.

The Tigers have been fighting since 1983 for an independent state in the north and east for the ethnic Tamil minority after decades of being marginalized by Sinhalese-dominated governments.—AP