Sri Lankan military says 60 to 70 rebels may have died, wounded in air strike, rebels deny

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - A Sri Lankan air force raid on a Tamil rebel training base in the island's north may have killed or wounded as many as 70 guerrillas, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday.

The raid on Tuesday, which the government said set off a series of explosions and fires at the base, was the latest in stepped up tit-for-tat attacks between the Tamil Tiger rebels and Sri Lankan forces.

"The base of the LTTE suffered major damage due to our bombing," said Lt. Col. Upali Rajapakse of the Defense Ministry's information center, citing visuals taken from the air. Rajapakse called the rebels by their acronym, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

"Generally 60 to 70 (guerrillas) live in such bases and we believe that they have died or (been) wounded due to the bombing and resulting explosions," Rajapakse said.

Air force planes on Tuesday targeted the Tiger camp in Vattappalai village in Mullaitivu district, a guerrilla stronghold, he said.

Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan, speaking Wednesday from the insurgents' stronghold of Kilinochchi, denied the government report, saying "no training camp was hit."

Ilanthirayan said there were no casualties.

Rajapakse said earlier that the bombing triggered explosions and a fire, possibly from an arms store inside the base.

There was no independent confirmation of the rival claims, as the areas are generally not accessible to reporters.

The air force has conducted frequent raids on suspected rebel positions since an unsuccessful suicide attack on the country's army commander a year ago.

Sri Lanka's civil conflict flared in 1983. A Norwegian-brokered cease-fire in 2002 halted large-scale fighting, but a resurgence of violence in 2005 has taken the death toll past 69,000.

Both sides say the cease-fire exists only on paper, but neither has withdrawn from it officially.

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04/18/07 00:30 EDT