COLOMBO, Aug 30, 2006 (AFP) - A battle between Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger rebels over a key eastern naval port continued Wednesday with sporadic artillery duels as both sides claimed to have inflicted heavy losses.

Sri Lankan defence officials and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said shelling continued in a government offensive to neutralise guerrilla long-range guns targetting the port of Trincomalee.

The defence ministry said in a statement that the rebels had buried 74 of their cadres and that 27 dead were lying along the frontline near the port.

It also said that the bodies of 16 dead rebels had been returned since fighting began Sunday. Separately, military sources said 15 soldiers were killed and another 92 wounded.

The Tigers said that they had stalled military's air and ground offensive towards the rebel-held town of Sampur, about 10 kilometres (six miles) from Trincomalee, which has been used as a staging post to mount artillery attacks.

The pro-rebel Tamilnet website said the Tigers had killed at least 50 soldiers and lost 18 of their own men. It accused the military of killing 20 civilians in a shell attack.

"The Sri Lanka army has intensified artillery and mortar attacks as the two-pronged offensive movement was contained by the Tigers," rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan was quoted by Tamilnet as saying.

It was not possible to get independent verification of the casualty figures.

Residents in Trincomalee, 260 kilometres (160 miles) northeast of the capital Colombo, said only a few artillery shells had been fired from military camps towards Tiger-held areas since Tuesday afternoon.

The Sampur battle is the latest bloody clash in Sri Lanka's three-decade-old ethnic conflict, which has escalated since December after a February 2002 ceasefire began unravelling. At least 1,500 people have been killed in fighting since December.

A previous truce ended in April 1995 when the rebels sank two naval boats anchored at Trincomalee harbour.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in the Sri Lankan conflict. Political talks on ending the violence stalled in April 2003.

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