Hundreds of Sri Lankan Troops Ferried to Besieged Army Base

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Under heavy fire, government warships Monday ferried several hundred infantrymen toward a key northern military base that Tamil rebels claim to have overrun.

The reinforcements were to join commandos flown in earlier by helicopters to lift the five-day siege on the Mullaittivu camp, one of the bloodiest battles of Sri Lanka’s 13-year-old civil war. The rebels are seeking an independent Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka’s north and east.

“Large numbers of troops are battling their way toward the camp,” Deputy Defense Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte said.

The guerrillas, in a statement Monday from their London office, said they had complete control of the base and were focusing on the arriving troops.

The military denied that the camp had fallen, saying that troops were still defending the base 170 miles north of the capital, Colombo. Reporters are not allowed into the area.

The rebels said 1,208 soldiers and 241 guerrillas have been killed since the siege began. The military says 300 troops and more than 400 rebels have been killed. Some military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the number of soldiers killed was far higher than the official count.