Nine Lankan soldiers were also killed.
Sri Lanka offered virtual amnesty to Tamil Tigers who surrender to troops on Thursday, but rejected an appeal by US-led donors to declare a 'no-fire' period and initiate a political dialogue with the beleaguered rebels.
Naval gunboats intercepted the Tiger boats leading to the battle, which lasted for six hours, it said.
The defence ministry said the students carried the grenade, which exploded accidentally and caused their deaths.\n
Karuna Amman, a former lieutenant of slain Liberation Tiges of Tamil Eelam chief Velupillai Prabhakaran and now a federal minister favours tapping of moderates among the Tamil Tigers who are "sincerely interested" in a just and peaceful solution to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka.
The latest fighting came a day after heavy clashes in the east of the island where 20 people were killed.
The security forces captured and destroyed the four bases of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the jungles of Thoppigala in Batticaloa district during an offensive late Friday night and early Saturday.
The Sri Lankan government on Tuesday allowed nearly 1.30 lakh Tamil civilians housed in refugees camps in northern part of the island country to visit their relatives, as authorities lifted restrictions on their movement.
Targeting the 'support network' of the Tamil Tigers, the United States on Wednesday designated a US-based charity group as a 'front' of the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and ordered freezing of its assets. The Tamil Foundation has been designated under 'Executive Order 13224', which "targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism," the US Department of Treasury said in a press statement.
Air Force spokesman, Group Captain Ajantha Silva confirmed that the air force had bombed some targets in the LTTE-held areas in the Eastern province, but refused to divulge what they were.
"A member of the LTTE is monitored from the moment he lands on Indian soil and is unaware that he is being tracked by the police. We allow him to wander for a while before catching him red-handed with the material as well as his contacts."
The navy engaged a flotilla of Tamil Tiger boats off the island's northeast and sank one boat, killing 15 rebels.
Uddhav Thackeray criticized BJP MP Nishikant Dubey for his controversial remarks amid the Marathi-Hindi language row, accusing him of trying to divide people and disturb harmony.
Over five Sri Lankan Air Force personnel were killed and two MI-24 helicopters damaged in a pre-dawn attack by Tamil Tiger rebels on an air base at the North-Central Anuradhapura district in Sri Lanka, the military said. ''First a group of LTTE cadres infiltrated the Anuradhapura SLAF Base and launched the initial attack around 3.20 am. Later, at least two LTTE light aircrafts carried out an air attack on the base, destroying two MI-24 helicopters,'' military spokesman said.
As Prabhakaran was leaving his house, Rajiv Gandhi called his son Rahul and asked him to fetch his (Gandhi's) bulletproof jacket. He put the jacket on Prabhakaran's back and remarked with his usual charming smile: "Take care of yourself."
The army attributed the killings to factional fighting within the LTTE.
The latest clash came as the Red Cross pulled its staff away from frontlines dividing Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tigers elsewhere in the island's north amid an escalation of fighting.
The Times accessed confidential United Nations documents that record nearly 7000 civilian deaths in the no-fire zone up till the end of April. UN sources told the paper that the toll surged from this point onwards, and an average of 1000 civilians were killed each day till May 19, the day after the LTTE supremo V Prabhakaran himself was killed by the armed forces
Japan's special peace envoy to Sri Lanka Yasushi Akashi offered to host the talks after the government said it was no longer insisting negotiations must be held within the island
As many as 18 soldiers were killed in Puloly in two similar attacks early in December.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on Saturday witnessed the conditions of tens of thousands of displaced Tamil civilians in northern Sri Lanka as he appealed to a triumphant government to 'heal the wounds' left by three decades of ethnic conflict. The Secretary General visited the camps in Vavuniya district today, where more than 300,000 people are staying, after escaping from the battle lines between government forces and Tamil Tigers.
Sri Lanka has asked the Nordic truce monitors not to accede to the rebels' 'unreasonable' demand to remove members in the peace mission who belong to states of European Union, which had outlawed LTTE as a terror organisation.
He has single-handedly planted over 100,000 trees and shared more than 40,000 saplings with others -- all at no cost.
As many as five major films released last Friday, and four among these had a south connection.
With a 50 per cent increase in the last four years, Madhya Pradesh has the maximum number (785) of tigers in the country, followed by Karnataka (563), Uttarakhand (560), and Maharashtra (444), according to the data.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on a 'safari' at the Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka on Sunday, as part of programmes to mark 50 years of 'Project Tiger'.
The petitioner's counsel said his client was facing threats of arrest and torture in his country as he was a former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam member, and that his wife and children had settled in India.
You are hooked on The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case from the first episode, applauds Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'The CBI did a wonderful job of tracking down the killers, but at the end of the day, all the hard work went for a toss.' 'If we had caught them alive, the operation would have been successful completely.'
On the night of July 5, the Tigers launched their first kamikaze operation. Miller took the wheels of the explosive-packed truck, smiled at everyone as he turned the ignition key and drove it slowly towards the Sri Lankan military camp. A few moments later all of Jaffna heard a thunderous explosion that brought the complex crashing down in clouds of dust. Miller had given birth to a deadly tactic that Prabhakaran would employ time and again with devastating consequences to Sri Lanka -- and India. A fascinating excerpt from M R Narayan Swamy's must read new book, The Rout Of Prabhakaran.
The Sri Lankan forces fast closing in on LTTE last bastion in island nation's north have captured one of the command bunkers used by elusive Tamil Tiger supreme Velupillai Prabhakaran in thick forests of Dharmapuram town in Mullaittivu.
A United Nations human rights expert has claimed that gruesome footage from the final days of Sri Lanka's civil war is authentic and proves war crimes took place there.
Tamilians and Keralites believe he is one of them, and people from Karnataka also consider him their hero.
A former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam child soldier-turned-politician was acquitted by a court in Sri Lanka on Wednesday in the 2005 murder case of a senior ethnic Tamil lawmaker at the height of the country's bloody civil war.
'The war ended in 2009 and I believe the new generation of Tamils don't know what was going on there.' 'I felt it was my duty to tell our story.' 'Since 2009, it seems like we are sleeping.'
Sri Lanka's Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected Trudeau's statements, asserting that they contained outrageous claims of genocide relating to past conflicts in the country.
Gonzalo Peillat scored a brace as Hyderabad Toofans ended Tamil Nadu Dragons unbeaten run with a 4-0 win in the men's Hockey India League in Ranchi on Saturday.
Bhai returns to the big screen after 18 months.
Asking Sri Lanka to end the indefinite detention of 11,000 people for suspected links with the Tamil Tigers, a global human rights body on Tuesday said the lack of transparency on the issue raises concerns about possible torture of those in custody.
Shrachi Rarh Bengal Tigers will play the Tamil Nadu Dragons in the first semi-final of the HIL on Friday, while JSW Soorma Hockey Club will take o Hyderabad Toofans in the second semi-final.
