At least 90 reported killed in fierce battle on Sri Lanka

The rebels claimed they killed more than 100 soldiers and lost only 16 of their fighters in a 10-hour firefight they characterized as a rout of the heavily armed government forces.

Either way, the battle was a serious blow to the government's promise to capture the Tamil Tigers' de facto state in the north, crush the rebel group and end the 25-year-old civil war in this Indian Ocean island nation by the end of the year.

As with most battles, the two sides gave very different accounts.

The military said fighting broke out just before dawn when rebel forces overran government positions in the rugged Muhamalai region of the Jaffna peninsula, north of rebel-held territory

Government troops fought back with small arms, mortars and tanks, eventually driving off the assault and launching a counteroffensive that pushed 500 yards into Tamil Tiger territory, the military spokesman, Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara, said.

Soon after the ground fighting, air force jets and helicopters destroyed two rebel artillery positions and hit rebel bunkers in the area, the military said in a statement.

Nanayakkara said 38 government soldiers died and 84 suffered wounds. The toll was the worst suffered by the military since the government pulled out of a tattered cease-fire with the rebels in January and stepped up its attacks.

Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan accused the military of sparking the battle. "They attempted to get near our positions. That's when the clashes erupted," he told The Associated Press.

In a later statement e-mailed to reporters, Ilanthirayan said the fighting began about 2:30 a.m., when troops backed by armored vehicles and artillery batteries tried to capture rebel fortifications on the front line.