Sri Lanka military says 50 more Tamil Tigers killed

COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lankan government forces have killed at least 50 Tamil Tiger rebels in fresh fighting along frontlines in the north of the island, the defence ministry said Thursday.Security forces killed the 50 members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in separate clashes in the Mannar, Vavuniya and Weli Oya areas along the southern edge of the guerrillas' mini-state.

The deaths brings to 1,248 the number of rebels the government says it has killed since the beginning of the year. In the same period, the government says it has lost 70 soldiers and police.

There was no immediate word from the Tigers. Casualty figures given by the government or the Tigers cannot be independently verified as journalists and human rights workers are barred from frontline and rebel-held areas.

The Sri Lankan government last month officially pulled out of an already moribund truce with the rebels, who have fought for more than three decades for an independent ethnic homeland in the Sinhalese-majority island.