COLOMBO, May 16: Heavy fighting continued in northern Sri Lanka today with the Tamil militants fiercely resisting the Army's massive advance to capture a strategic highway in the region, the rebel radio said.

The clandestine Voice of Tigers radio of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said in its regular morning broadcast that fighting was raging at Omanthai and Nedunkeni.

The two places are about 35 km apart. While the military had claimed to have captured Omanthai, 10 km north of the government-controlled Vavuniya town, on Tuesday, Nedunkeni appeared to be a new front opened by the troops, Tamil sources said.

They said troops could have advanced to Nedunkeni, about 35 km north-east of Omanthai, from the Army camp at Welioya, a fortified Sinhalese settlement further east.

The troop columns battling the rebels at Omanthai and Nedunkeni may be trying to link up, they added.

The LTTE radio said they had lost six of their fighting cadres, including a woman, since the forces launched the offensive, code-named `Jayasikuru' (Sure Victory), on Monday to capture the Vavuniya-Jaffna highway from the militants. The military quoted LTTE radio transmissions yesterday to say that more than 100 rebels had been killed or wounded in the fithting around Omanthai.

It put the Army casualties at 18 killed and 31 wounded.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.