Colombo: Sri Lanka's air force bombed LTTE territory in the far north on Tuesday in what the military called a preemptive strike on a training base, but the rebels said it was an unprovoked attack near their stronghold.
The Tigers said at least 20 air force bombs fell near the village of Vaddakkachchi, which lies around six miles east of their northern nerve-centre of Kilinochchi.
The military said the air force had targetted a Sea Tiger training camp another 15 miles further southeast on a lagoon near the village of Puthukkudiyiruppu.
"We are being bombed," rebel military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan told Reuters. "The bombs are falling near Kilinochchi. The buildings in the town are vibrating. They have dropped about 20 bombs so far though there was no provocation," he added.
There were no immediate details of casualties or damage.
"According to air force information, there is a Sea Tiger training base at Puthukkudiyiruppu, so we've targetted that," said military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe.
"This was not due to provocation as such. This was a known target. Every day the navy is getting hammered (in sea clashes), so to preempt that the air force has taken the target."
A litany of military clashes and attacks have killed more than 3,000 civilians, troops and Tiger fighters so far this year in a new chapter of the island's two-decade civil war.
Many ordinary Sri Lankans fear the violence will escalate now that the island's 2002 truce has disintegrated in all but name.
Fighting since the conflict began in 1983 has killed more than 67,000 people. Sri Lanka's main financial donors -- the United States, Japan, Norway and the European Union -- are meeting in Washington to discuss the island's deteriorating security situation, and are expected to call on Tuesday for a halt to hostilities and to the escalating rights abuses blamed on both sides.
President Mahinda Rajapakse, elected a year ago, has flatly rejected rebel demands for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in Sri Lanka's north and east, where they already run a de facto state.
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