Sri Lanka offensive after ceasefire call

The Sri Lankan military has launched a new offensive against Tamil Tiger guerrillas -- just hours after the rebels said they would observe a one-month ceasefire from Sunday.

It's the first time they've made such an offer in seventeen years of war.

The army says twenty-four soldiers and fifty-one rebels have been killed in heavy fighting in the northern Jaffna peninsula and that it has recaptured eight square kilometres of territory from the rebels.

The BBC correspondent in Sri Lanka says it's still not clear whether the government will also observe a ceasefire.

It has said the rebels may simply be offering the truce so that they can recruit new fighters and rearm.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service