Fighting across the dense jungles of northern Sri Lanka has killed 12 Tamil Tiger rebels and three government soldiers, the military said Tuesday. An army patrol searching a road for buried mines was hit early Tuesday by a roadside bomb in the northwestern Mannar district that killed one soldier, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. Mortar fire on the northern Jaffna peninsula killed another two soldiers Monday, he said. Meanwhile, fighting along the front lines surrounding the rebels' de facto state in the north killed 12 rebel fighters, Nanayakkara was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
