COLOMBO: Sri Lankan troops launched a new offensive against a Tamil Tiger rebel-held area in the north on Wednesday, the defence ministry said, as a top United Nations official began a week-long tour of the island.

Fighting between the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has intensified since the government scrapped a six-year-old ceasefire pact last month. The government said the rebels had used the truce to re-arm.

“Troops continued to surge into LTTE territory towards Adampan junction in a fresh offensive launched at 6 am,” the Ministry of Defence said in a statement on its website.

The ministry also said at least 30 rebels and three Sri Lankan soldiers had been killed on Tuesday in a series of engagements along the front line separating government and rebel forces in the north and northwest.

Suspected rebels also killed three soldiers on Monday during an ambush in the far south.

The Tigers were not available for comment and analysts say both sides tend to inflate enemy casualty figures in the absence of independent accounts of the fighting.

The latest fighting came as UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Angela Kane arrived in the Indian Ocean island nation to kick off a week-long mission described by the world body as a regular follow-up visit.

The ambush in the far southern district of Monaragala occurred near Yala national park, which is popular with foreign tourists. Attacks in the normally calm south are rare.

“LTTE terrorists fired at an army checkpoint in Galge and killed all three soldiers on duty,” military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.

A search operation was underway for the attackers.

Buoyed by battlefield victories in the east, where it has captured swathes of rebel-held terrain, the government is now seeking to overrun the separatist Tigers’ northern stronghold in the latest chapter of a 25-year civil war.

But the Tigers continue to mount suicide attacks and roadside bombings, which are increasingly scattered with some in the capital Colombo.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says it is deeply concerned about the growing number of civilian casualties in Sri Lanka, where the civil war has killed more than 70,000 people since 1983.

The ICRC said 180 civilians were reported killed and almost 270 wounded so far this year in bombings on buses, train stations and in the streets. The Sri Lanka government has blamed most of the attacks on the rebels.—Reuters