Sri Lanka says 39 rebels, 6 troops killed in clashes

Dec 3- Thirty-nine Tamil Tiger rebels and six soldiers were killed in fighting in Sri Lanka's north on Monday, the military said.

Dozens more combatants were wounded in the fighting in the northwestern district of Mannar and northern Jaffna peninsula, where a renewed civil war is now focused amid near-daily air raids, bombings and land and sea battles.

The fighting came two days after the military said they had attacked a line of Tamil Tiger rebel bunkers in South of Adampan, in Mannar.

"The LTTE attacked the troops at positions we captured last Saturday in South of Adampan," said Military Spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara.

"We have successfully repulsed the attack and retaliated," he said, adding that intercepted communications confirmed 35 rebels were killed.

Nanayakkara also said six soldiers died and 20 were injured in the fighting and said the military was holding the captured bunker line.

The military also said a small bomb was defused in Colombo, near the official residence of the Air Force commander.

Four rebel fighters were killed in a separate clash in Muhamalai, which sits on a heavily-defended "border" that separates government from rebel-held territory in the far northern Jaffna peninsula, the military said.