A wave of pitched battles, bombings and an airstrike killed at least 34 people across northern Sri Lanka, the military said, as a Japanese envoy met with officials to try to stop the raging civil war.
In the latest attack, soldiers pushed into rebel territory in northern Mannar district and captured nine bunkers, killing nine insurgents, said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara.
Two soldiers also died in the fighting and 15 more were wounded, he said.
Earlier, a roadside bomb hit a van in the Vavuniya region, just south of the front lines separating government forces from the Tamil Tiger rebels' de facto state in the north, Nanayakkara said.
The passengers, civilian workers with a military escort, were returning from an army base after collecting explosives for use in civilian metal mining, he said.
The civilian driver and two soldiers were killed, while three other soldiers and a civilian were wounded, the military said. The explosives inside the van did not detonate, Nanayakkara said.
In hopes of reviving the shattered peace process, Japanese mediator Yasushi Akashi met with Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama and President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday during the envoy's three-day visit to the Indian Ocean island nation.
"Mr Akashi asked the president for the reasons for the abrogation of the cease-fire agreement, and the president explained that from the beginning it did not deliver the intended results," Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona told the Associated Press.
Rajapaksa told Akashi that the rebels used the cease-fire only to build up their military strength, Kohona said.
Akashi also promised continued economic assistance to Sri Lanka and support to the government's efforts to evolve a power-sharing deal with minority Tamils, he added.
Source: Press Association
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