Ten soldiers and at least 15 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in heaving fighting erupted Saturday night between Sri Lanka's government troops and the rebels in the northern Vavuniya district, defense officials said Sunday.

Military spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) began to fire mortars and artillery targeting the Vavuniya Forward Defense Line (FDL) at 9:30 PM (16:00 GMT) and the Army hit back causing severe casualties to the rebels.

Samarasinghe said 10 soldiers were killed and another 20 were injured in the fierce battle which lasted until Sunday morning.

He said at least 15 bodies of LTTE cadres were found in the battle field, some of them being child soldiers.

"The LTTE's communication intercepted by the military showed that 52 rebels were killed in the battle," said the spokesman.

He also said an ammunition dump and an armored personnel carrier were hit by the rebel fire.

However, the LTTE's artillery and mortar attack has been successfully repulsed by the security forces, defense officials said.

The pro-LTTE website TamilNet said 20 government troopers were killed, 40 wounded in a commando raid launched by the LTTE on Saturday night targeting Vavuniya Mannar border villages where the Army had recently advanced its FDL.

The website quoted LTTE Military Spokesman Irasiah Ilanthirayanas saying that the mission was successful in restoring their FDL positions.

The upsurge in the island's ethnic separatist violence since the end of 2005 has so far claimed nearly 5,000 lives.

Claiming discrimination at the hands of the majority ethnic Sinhalese-dominated government, the LTTE has been fighting for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's 12.5 percent Tamil minority since the 1970s.

(Xinhua News Agency June 4, 2007)