By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Three soldiers were wounded during a clash between the military and Tamil rebels in eastern Sri Lanka, the Media Center for National Security said Thursday.
A duty officer at the media center said rebels fired mortar at a military camp in Batticaloa District late Wednesday, wounding the three soldiers. The officer cannot be named due to Defense Ministry regulations.
Soldiers fired back, but it was not immediately know if the insurgents suffered any casualties, said the officer. Rebels could not be reached immediately for comment.
Eastern Sri Lanka has become a hotbed of violence between the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who have been fighting for more than 20 years for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's 3.1 million minority ethnic Tamils after decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese.