COLOMBO, June 27: The Sri Lankan military has claimed destroying a base of the Tamil Tigers and killing 50 guerillas in the northern Mullativu region.

Defence officials said on Friday the base was completely hidden by a heavy forest in the region controlled by the Tiger insurgents came under fire by government troops, a military spokesman said.

The official army website carried photographs of a row of dead bodies of 25 rebels while military sources at the Colombo military headquarters said twenty five more rebels were killed in fighting elsewhere in the north.

Separately, the Air Force carried out air raids on a rebel training base deep in the guerilla controlled territory, military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said adding that the pilots had confirmed the targets were taken accurately.

Heavy fighting continues in Vavuniya, Mannar and Welioya regions bordering the rebels’ northern de facto state, Brigadier Nannayakkara said on Friday evening. The LTTE has not commented on its casualties while the military has formally acknowledged the death of only nine soldiers.

Separately, unknown men knifed to death a close associate of late T. Maheswaran, a Tamil minister and United National Party (UNP) parliamentarian who was shot dead at a Hindu temple in January 2008.