COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: According to Sri Lankan Milatary, Sri Lankan soldiers killed 14 Tamil separatists in an artillery attack and gunbattles in the embattled northeast on Tuesday.

Troops stationed along the northern front line in Pokkaravai village, Vavuniya district, came under heavy mortar fire by Tamil Tiger rebels Monday, a Defense Ministry official said. Troops repelled the attack with artillery fire, killing two guerrillas, the official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The fighting wounded two soldiers, he said.

Separately, nine rebels died in gunbattles in nearby Mannar district, while two were killed in fighting on the northern Jaffna peninsula, he said.

Also Monday, another rebel died in a skirmish in the eastern Ampara district, the official said.

Phone calls to rebel headquarters went unanswered Tuesday.

Both sides often inflate each other's casualty figures while downplaying their own.

Independent verification of the military's claims are impossible as the region is off limits to the media.

Fighting across northern Sri Lanka — where the separatist rebels control a de facto state — has intensified in recent months. The military push is aimed at crushing the separatist movement and ending nearly a quarter-century of war on this Indian Ocean island.

In July, the government announced it had cleared the Tamil Tigers from their former stronghold in the east, though small pockets of resistance remain.

A series of weekend battles along the northern front lines left 41 rebels and three soldiers dead, according to the military.

The rebels began fighting in 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils following decades of discrimination under governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict. A 2002 cease-fire between the Tamil Tigers and the government broke down two years ago.

Source- Herald Tribune