Heavy fighting between Sri Lanka security forces and LTTE members in north has left at least 27 people dead, military sources said.The LTTE lost more than 20 members in pre-dawn clashes Monday on the Jaffna peninsula, according to military sources. Another three Tigers were killed in the Wanni region further south, it added.
Sri Lanka Forces were attempting to break into territory in Wanni where the LTTE's illegal controlled area.
Meanwhile 5 army personals were dead also another 30 soldiers were wounded in latest confrontation in North.
The pro- LTTE Tamilnet.com website said both sides traded artillery fire in the Mannar district, part of the Wanni region.
"The Sri Lanka army had suffered casualties in a ground operation launched Sunday in Thampanai area,” Tamilnet said without elaborating.
The clashes came after the government's top defence official offered Sunday to halt military action in exchange for a resumption of peace talks stalled since last October.
Troops would not press ahead with an offensive if LTTE agreed to talks; defence ministry secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse told a newspaper amid pressure from the country’s key foreign backers to halt the carnage.
"The decision (of war or peace) is theirs and I believe they wouldn't reject this opportunity," Rajapakse told, Colombo based the Sunday Island newspaper.
"We'll not take advantage of the ground situation," if the LTTE agree to negotiate.
But LTTE is indefinitely silence on Rahapaka’s offer.
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