COLOMBO: Heavy fighting between government troops and LTTE rebels in northwestern Mannar completely destroyed a Roman Catholic Church in the area killing six soldiers, military officials said on Wednesday.

The St Sebestian’s Church was hit by heavy artillery aimed at soldiers who were cleaning the building, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.

The attack came as the death toll since the weekend soared to around seventy, almost all of them Tiger guerillas according to army officials.

Meanwhile the Tiger separatists said twenty soldiers were killed in an ‘intensive counter-attack’ launched by the rebels on army units that attempted to move through northern guerilla controlled areas on Tuesday.

In its statement on the pro rebel website Tamil Net, the LTTE further claimed that outfit’s long range snipers had also gunned down twenty two more soldiers in Mannar.

The government military vehemently denied rebel claims and said intense fighting that raged in northern areas of the rebel controlled Wanni region forced ‘the terrorists to retreat further inland towards northern jungles.’ On Wednesday afternoon the army website said two soldiers had died when the Tigers activated a powerful claymore mine targeting troops who were carrying out a route clearing patrol.

Meanwhile authorities revealed that another deadly strike by the LTTE targeting civilians was thwarted when a powerful time bomb was discovered five minutes before it was set to blow up in the historic city of Anuradhapura.

A civilian had discovered the parceled up time bomb at 11.45 am under a clothes rack at the Anuradhapura weekly fair last Sunday and promptly informed military officials, sources said.

According to the police the time set for the explosion was 11.50 am. Government officials said the prevention of what would have been a massive explosion in a public place was a result of repeated warnings to the public to be vigilant of their surrounding and the setting up of teams of civilian vigilantes trained by the police and military on how to prevent terrorist activities and act in an emergency.

In the past few weeks several suicide kits and other warlike items have been unearthed from Colombo and other regions following security sweeps and civilian tip offs.

Meanwhile, as part of the heightened security measures to prevent the rebels carrying out attacks in the South the government has banned the public attending school functions.

The step to keep the public away from schools and school functions has been taken to prevent members of the LTTE getting into schools in the guise of civilians, Education Ministry officials said.

Meanwhile on Tuesday panicky parents of a leading Boys’ school in Colombo handed over a photo-journalist affiliated to Associated Press to the police after he was seen taking photographs near the school.