COLOMBO, May 23, 2007 (AFP) - Seven people have been killed in fresh clashes in Sri Lanka's northern and eastern regions as government troops traded fire with Tamil Tiger rebels, the defence ministry said Wednesday.

A soldier and a rebel were killed in the eastern coastal town of Batticaloa early Wednesday as troops encountered a group of guerrillas during a search operation, the ministry said.

Security forces also recovered a cache of arms in a house during the raid, the statement said.

In the same district, two rebels were killed in a clash with security forces on foot patrol late Tuesday. In a pre-dawn skirmish in the northern district of Vavuniya, troops on patrol killed one rebel Wednesday, the ministry said.

In a separate incident in the same district, security forces shot dead two guerrillas.

There was no immediate comment from the Tamil Tigers, who have been fighting for the past 35 years for a separate state.

Nearly 5,000 people have been killed in the latest surge of fighting that began in December 2005, according to the defence ministry. In total, the conflict has claimed more than 60,000 lives.

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