VALACHCHENAI, Sri Lanka, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan warships and helicopter gunships beat off Tamil Tiger rebels who used about 20 boats to attack a cargo ship off the northern Jaffna peninsula on Sunday, the military said.

It said some of the rebel boats carried suicide attackers.

In other clashes troops chased rebels routed from their eastern stronghold, which they had controlled for 11 years and had belonged to them under a tattered 2002 truce. The military said at least 18 rebels were killed.

The Tigers resumed their fight for an independent state for minority Tamils in the north and east last year after the majority Sinhalese government rejected demands for a separate homeland. The conflict has lasted two decades.

"Around 20 Tiger vessels have come and attacked a cargo ship which had just dropped off a shipment of food for Jaffna," said military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe.

"Three enemy boats have been sunk, the rest have withdrawn," he said. "The crew of the cargo ship is safe, but the hull is damaged and it is taking in some water. Navy welders have gone to help bring it back to port."

Three Sri Lankan sailors were wounded in the battle about 5 miles (8 km) out to sea off the army-held Jaffna peninsula.

CLASH

Samarasinghe said troops killed at least 18 rebels in a pre-dawn clash as they tried to cross an army-held highway in the eastern Batticaloa district and reach a pocket of jungle the Tigers control further south.

He said troops also found the corpses of 22 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighters presumed killed in previous days.

But dozens of other Tigers had likely managed to flee the enclave, which fell on Friday. "In small numbers they will have crossed towards Toppigala," said Samarasinghe, referring to a swathe of rebel-held jungle inland. "We can't cover all the routes because there are so many kilometres (of road)."

The captured coastal stretch spanning the districts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa about 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Colombo was an important maritime supply line for the Tigers and is a major strategic loss.

The Tigers remained defiant. "The location (of our fighters) may have changed, but we still have our fighting capacity," Tiger spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan said by telephone from the rebels' northern base of Kilinochchi.

As the enclave fell on Friday, more than 10,000 refugees fled after having been trapped for weeks by artillery duels.

They joined tens of thousands more who managed to escape in recent weeks by trekking through jungle, swimming across lagoons and travelling by sea. They now live in crowded emergency camps in Batticaloa.

More than 67,000 people have been killed in the conflict since 1983. The United Nations estimates more than 500,000 people have been displaced across the island due to war past and present and the 2004 tsunami.

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