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Christine Jayasinghe in Colombo
Sri Lankan air force jets carried out retaliatory raids on Tuesday on Tamil Tiger positions in the northern Jaffna peninsula after the rebels attacked a police station, killing 23 people in the two incidents.
The fresh escalation of violence comes less than a month after guerrillas of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam mounted a daring bid on the island's main air force base and international airport.
The LTTE overran a police station in the eastern Ampara district on Tuesday morning, killing 22 persons and wounding 18 policemen.
Hours later, four Israeli-built Kfir jets pounded suspected LTTE bases in Pallai in the north, military spokesman Sanath Karunaratne said.
Local police in Ampara said that at least six rebels were killed in the attack, according to intercepts of rebel radio transmissions.
Karunaratne said the rebels, who had left the station armoury intact, were forced to withdraw when elite Special Task Force commandos rushed to the scene and beat them back after two hours of fighting.
The new wave of violence has virtually buried hopes of peace negotiations between Colombo and the LTTE.
The Norwegian bid to broker talks between the two warring sides has been shelved since June and the government has shown no sign of reviving it.
The July 24 rebel attack on the airport was triggered by a weekend of bombing raids carried out by the air force.
The government defended the breaking of a two-month lull in aerial bombing by claiming that the guerrillas were massing their forces for an attempt to re-take the northern city of Jaffna.
Indo-Asian News Service
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