Sri Lankan aircraft pound rebel bases for third day

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's air force assaulted Tamil Tiger rebels for a third straight day on Friday, hitting a supply base in the separatist group's de facto capital and bunkers elsewhere, the military said.

It said ground troops also killed 24 rebels and wounded 40, part of a campaign this year to force a military solution to the 25-year insurgency carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Four soldiers died and 14 were wounded in the ground battles, the military said.

Since the official scrapping of an often-ignored ceasefire in January, the Sri Lankan government has sent air, land and sea power to try and encircle the rebels in their northern strongholds of Jaffna, Vavuniya, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu.

"We have taken two targets this morning ... MI-24s (helicopters) attacked a line of bunkers in Tunukkai in Mullaitivu and fighter jets completely destroyed a LTTE logistics facility in Kilinochchi," air force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said.

Death tolls are difficult to verify because both sides distort the figures to their advantage and the military has closed down the war zones to outside observers.

The rebels, who are fighting for the creation of an independent state for the ethnic minority Tamil people in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, were not immediately available for comment.

The war has killed at least 70,000 people. So far this year, according to a compilation of military data, some 5,924 rebels have been killed against the loss of 787 soldiers.