Renewed fighting between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels along Sri Lanka's northern front lines killed 26 rebels and two soldiers, the military said Wednesday.
Violence has escalated in this Indian Ocean island in recent months, with the military stepping up ground assaults and air strikes on rebels as the government pledged to capture rebel-held territory and crush the insurgents by the end of the year.
The latest infantry clashes erupted Tuesday in the Vavuniya and Welioya regions bordering the rebels' de facto northern state, said Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara, the military spokesman.
The fighting in Vavuniya killed 17 rebels and one soldier, while in the nearby Welioya region, nine rebels and one soldier died, he said. The military initially reported 27 rebels killed, but corrected that number later Wednesday.
Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan could not immediately be reached for comment.
It was not possible to independently verify the military reports because journalists are banned from the northern jungles where much of the fighting takes place. Each side commonly exaggerates its enemy's casualties and downplays its own.
The rebels have fought since 1983 to create an independent state for ethnic minority Tamils, who have been marginalized by successive governments controlled by ethnic Sinhalese. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
The government has vowed to end the insurgency by the end of this year. However, the island's army chief, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, told reporters Monday that it may take another year to defeat the rebels.
Nanayakkara said the army has captured about 57 sq. miles (148 sq. kilometers) of rebel-held territory in the Mannar region in an offensive that began in September and left 2,058 rebels and 196 soldiers dead.
With violence flaring, the International Committee of the Red Cross condemned persistent attacks on civilians, including bus bombings and other assaults on public places that have killed at least 80 civilians in the past three months.
The ICRC said Tuesday it had received reports of civilians being killed, beaten, arrested or disappearing after being specifically targeted.
"We deplore the loss of any civilian life," Toon Vandenhove, head of the Red Cross delegation in Colombo, said in a statement. "Once again, we appeal to those responsible for the recent attacks to respect civilian life at all times."
The group also said Wednesday it had temporarily withdrawn its observers from the Omanthai crossing point, effectively shutting the only major crossing for civilians and cargo into rebel-held territory, said spokeswoman Aleksandra Matijevic.
Matijevic said the observers would return to the crossing when they received safety assurances.
Meanwhile, nearly 500 people, including top opposition lawmakers, gathered in Colombo to protest an attack on a British High Commission employee and a media rights activist Monday.
The two men were in a car in Colombo when they were ambushed and severely beaten, police said. The attack came amid a spate of assaults against journalists and media activists that coincided with the escalation in fighting.
"This is not an isolated incident, and it is clearly a part of the continuous attack on journalists, especially those who are reporting on defense issues," said Sunanda Deshapriya of the Free Media Movement, an independent media rights group.
The activists demanded that police arrest the attackers.
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