18 reported killed in clashes in northern Sri Lanka

Fourteen Tamil tiger rebels and four Sri Lankan soldiers were killed in clashes on Wednesday, Sri Lanka radio reported on Thursday.

It said 13 "terrorists" , one officer and two soldiers died on Wednesday during long-range exchanges of fire using small arms, mortars and artillery in the Kilinochchi area, about 20 kms south of the Jaffna peninsula.

Another "terrorist" was killed on Wednesday afternoon during a separate clash in Kanakarayankulam, about 50 kms further south, the radio said.

It said one soldier was killed on Wednesday night when gunmen from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fired on troops carrying out a search operation in Chettikulam, which is about 20 kms to the southwest of the northern town of Vavuniya.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.