Air force jets bomb Tamil rebels in eastern Sri Lanka , other violence kills 3

Associated Press, Thu November 23, 2006 01:35 EST . COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - (AP) Air force jets bombed Tamil Tiger positions in eastern Sri Lanka - Thursday to help repel an attack on army troops, while the rebels killed three government security guards in a raid in the north, the military said.
An official at the Media Center for National Security said the Tamil Tigers had moved closer to government-held areas in eastern Batticaloa district late Wednesday and started attacking government troops positions early Thursday with artillery.
Military troops retaliated with artillery and later called in air support, said the official, who cannot be named due to army regulations.
The rebels, however, accused the military of launching the offensive to try and take back insurgent-held territory.
``The military has started a big operation to capture territory, they have moved closer to our forward defense lines,'' the rebels' military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan said from the rebels' de facto capital of Kilinochchi.
No other details were immediately available.
Batticaloa has been home to a breakaway faction of the mainstream rebels since a powerful eastern commander split in 2004 with 6,000 fighters. The uprising was suppressed by the northern-based rebels, though the renegades enjoy influence in the area a hotbed of recent violence.
Separately, rebels raided a north central security camp at Kabithigollewa at 2:30 a.m. Thursday, killing three government ``home guards'' pro-government civilian residents who have weapons training and help security forces, an official at the national security media center said. Five soldiers were wounded in separate attacks further north in Jaffna peninsula.
The presence of home guards all of whom are ethnic Sinhalese was stepped up in the area, about 285 kilometers (185 miles) north of the capital, Colombo, after a bus bombing in June blamed on the Tigers that killed 64 people, mostly Sinhalese civilians.
The Tigers have been fighting for over two decades for a separate homeland for the country's minority ethnic Tamils, citing discrimination by the Sinhalese majority. A 2002 cease-fire stopped the civil war.
But since last December, airstrikes, mine attacks, assassinations and regular exchanges of heavy arms fire have killed more than 3,200 fighters and civilians. Both sides insist they have not withdrawn from the truce.
With peace talks stalled, the government and the rebels refuse to budge from their positions. The rebels want a separate homeland, while the government says regional autonomy is the maximum it will give.
Associated Press Writer, Krishan Francis, contributed to the report