8 Tamil Tigers Killed in Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- The air force bombed a strategic Tamil Tiger jungle base in eastern Sri Lanka, killing at least eight rebels, including two senior guerrillas, a military spokesman said Tuesday.

The air raid comes as relief agencies warned of an impending humanitarian crisis in the east, where tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in recent weeks due to an escalation of fighting.

Kfir and MiG-27 jets carried out the airstrikes on the base in Thoppigala on Monday, said air force Group Captain Ajantha Silva. The air force declined to say why it withheld the news of the raid for 24 hours.

The rebels, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, confirmed the air raid, but denied there were any casualties.

"Yes, there was some air movement and some sort of bombing, but we suffered no casualties. The report is negative," spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan said from Kilinochchi, the de-facto rebel capital in the north.

The Thoppigala camp serves as a major training base for the rebels. It is considered one of the last major LTTE redoubts in the east as Sri Lankan forces have carried out several ground and air attacks over the past year and captured territory.

"As fighting continues, we are also worried for the safety and protection of all civilians, as reports indicate that shelling is occurring from and to highly populated areas," the Inter Agency Standing Committee, a group of U.N. and private relief agencies, said Monday in a statement.

More than 40,000 people have fled their homes in eastern Batticaloa over the past few weeks seeking shelter in nearby government-controlled areas where an estimated 60,000 people are already packed into refugee camps, the International Committee of the Red Cross has said.

Separately, security forces discovered two roadside bombs each weighing 10 kilograms (22.05 pounds) in the northern Jaffna peninsula, the military said in a statement. The bombs which can be triggered by remote control, are a favored weapons of the Tamil Tigers.

The military also recovered a suicide belt from the abandoned house on Monday, the statement said.

The rebels have been fighting since 1983 to create a separate state for the ethnic Tamil minority in the north and northeast, following decades of discrimination by the Sinhalese majority.

About 65,000 people died in the conflict before the government and rebels signed a Norwegian-brokered cease-fire in 2002.

Renewed fighting has killed about 4,000 people since the truce faltered in late 2005, European cease-fire monitors say.