November 25, 2008	Tuesday	Ziqa'ad 26, 1429

COLOMBO, Nov 24: The battle for the Sri Lankan rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi raged on Monday under torrential monsoon rains, with both sides saying they had killed scores of their enemy in three days of fighting.

The military, emboldened by the capture two weeks ago of the entire western coast for the first time since 1993, is fighting its way toward the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE) self-declared capital of Kilinochchi on three fronts.

The pro-rebel www.TamilNet.com web site, quoting LTTE officials it did not identify, said the rebels killed 78 soldiers over the weekend, including 43 in a battle a few kilometres west of the strategic Paranthan junction on Sunday.

“The stiff fighting by the Tigers pushed back the Sri Lankan troops,” TamilNet wrote of the battle.

“Meanwhile, heavy rain has led to floods.”

The military said on Monday troops killed 120 LTTE fighters on the southern edge of Kilinochchi, at Paranthan and on the eastern coast near the other major Tiger-held town, Mullaittivu. Twenty-seven soldiers died, the military said.

“Heavy fighting is going on in the three locations. Rain has started, but it will not affect the troops. But the hazards faced by everybody will also be faced by troops,” military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.

Both sides routinely inflate casualty figures to suit their advantage, and independent verification is nearly impossible because the military bars most independent journalists from the war zone and the Tigers rarely allow them into areas they hold.

Talk is swirling that President Mahinda Rajapaksa will use the battlefield success -- the most by any government in the 25-year war -- to call early elections to consolidate power while circumventing criticism about Sri Lanka’s ailing economy.

Tiger leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran is due on Thursday to give his annual “Heroes’ Day” speech, which in the past has been a worldwide call to arms to supporters, including those in the worldwide Tamil-speaking diaspora, who have funded the LTTE.

Last week, the military captured the strategically important town of Pooneryn on the northern edge of the mainland and opened a new front to advance on Kilinochchi from the north.

The Tigers tacitly admitted that they had lost vast areas to advancing government forces, and said the current fighting was at a location just eight kilometres west of Kilinochchi.—Agencies