Sri Lanka military denies report that 2,000 troops killed in 2007

Sri Lanka's military Sunday denied a report saying more than nine times as many of its soldiers have been killed in clashes with Tamil rebels in 2007 than officially stated.

The English-language Sunday Times said Sri Lanka's top army general Sarath Fonseka told a briefing of military commanders last week that 2,000 troops were killed and 4,000 injured during in 2007, compared to an official tally of 213 dead and 829 injured.

"I myself was not present at that meeting. But we did not have so many casualty figures last year," army spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara told AFP in refuting the newspaper story.

Fonseka, who was severely injured by a Tamil rebel suicide bomber in April 2006, told the military commanders that security forces killed 5,000 Tiger cadres last year, the Sunday Times said.

The military had earlier estimated the Tigers' strength between 3,000 and 5,000 combatants and announced at the start of 2008 that they would be able to wipe out the rebels within six months.

According to the military, fighting since January 2008 killed 3,359 rebels and 246 soldiers died during the same period. The figure comes on top of military claims that 2,752 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres were killed in 2007 which would total 6,111 rebels dead in the past 16 months.

Both sides are known to downplay their own casualty figures and inflate enemy losses. Casualty figures cannot be independently verified as Colombo prevents media and rights groups from visiting embattled areas.

Tens of thousands have died since LTTE launched a separatist campaign for an independent homeland in 1972.

Source: AFP