COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger guerrillas attacked a police station in the east of the country on Tuesday, leaving at least 17 dead and 18 wounded, the military said.
The rebels briefly overran the Central Camp police station in Ampara District, some 150 miles east of the capital Colombo, before they were beaten back by reinforcements of elite police commandos.
``Clearing operations are still continuing and we expect the death toll to rise,'' said military spokesman Brigadier Sanath Karunaratne about three hours after the pre-dawn raid.
He said 12 policemen were killed and 18 others wounded by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels, who were believed to have made off with the bodies of several other policemen.
``Two civilians were also killed while enemy radio transmissions reveal that the LTTE suffered three dead and seven wounded,'' said Karunaratne.
Local residents said the rebels used a tractor to batter down defenses of the heavily fortified police station which guards a key highway to Ampara.
The district is part of the Sri Lanka's North East Province where the LTTE has been fighting since 1983 for a separate state for minority Tamils.
Police said commandos of the paramilitary Special Task Force were combing jungles around the station for bodies of policemen who were gunned down as they fled.
``The main armory is intact, but they have got away with several weapons,'' said one police officer.
It was the worst rebel attack since July 24 when an LTTE suicide squad devastated the country's only international airport in a 10-hour blitz that left seven military personnel and 13 guerrillas dead and destroyed or damaged aircraft worth over 1 billion.
That attack also appeared to signal the collapse of a Norwegian brokered initiative to end a conflict which has claimed an estimated 64,000 lives.
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There has been an upsurge in fighting between government troops and Tamil Tigers since rebels launched a major attack on Sri Lanka's international airport on 24 July.Tuesday's attack was the worst on a police station since January, 1997, when 23 policemen died in a raid on their post in the Kebithigollewa district.The rebels have been fighting for two decades for an independent homeland in the north and east of the country.More than 60,000 people have died since they took up arms against the government in 1983.(BBC, Aug 21, 2001)