Several fighter jets were sent on Wednesday by the Sri Lankan air force to bomb rebel positions before the ground troops stormed about 35 rebel bunkers. At least 10 Tamil Tigers were killed in the exchange of fire, the military informed.

The latest clash between the two sides came after a roadside bomb killed 17 people blast in the northwestern district of Mannar on Tuesday. Most of those killed in the blast were children who were in a school bus. The LTTE accused the military for the incident, but the army denied it had anything to do with the bomb and labeled the accusation as "fabricated stories".

"The troops attacked about 35 of the LTTE terrorist bunkers in Killali and Nagerkovil in Jaffna today in the early hours, destroying about 20," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara. She added that the monitoring showed that 10 terrorist were killed and seven wounded.

The battle which has spread on sea, land and air has gradually intensified since the 6-year truce between the two sides has come to an end on January 16.

The rebels’ statement regarding the latest clashes is, as expected, a bit different from the government version. Tamil Tiger spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan released an e-mail statement to inform that the LTTE managed to beat back a military attempt to attack their forward defense line in Jaffna.

"Fighting units of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF) backed by heavy artillery and mortar fire advanced towards LTTE position," the e-mail wrote.

According to Ilanthiraiyan, the clash between the military and rebels lasted for about an hour and the SLAF fighting units retreated to their fortified localities with casualties.

However, there were no independent accounts of the fighting and, as analysts say, both sides tend to exaggerate when it comes to the enemy’s losses. The conflict started approximately twenty years ago and since then, about 70,000 people died in the fighting.