At least four soldiers were killed while 14 others were injured when the Tamil Tiger rebels fired mortars at a military convoy comprising some journalists in the northern Jaffna peninsula on Tuesday, defense officials said.

The mortars hit military vehicles carrying some 25 journalists who were on a tour of the Jaffna peninsula but none of them were hurt, officials said.

"The troops took quick measures to get the journalists from the area to safer places and no journalist was injured," said the Media Center for National Security in a statement.

The pressmen were on a tour of the Army's forward defense lines at Muhamalai, the scene of heavy fighting between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels and the Army in mid-August.

Several hours earlier on Tuesday the Sri Lanka Air Force said it bombed identified LTTE positions in the eastern Batticaloa district.

The exchanges of fire on Tuesday came after Monday's massacre of some 11 Muslim civilians in the Pottuvil area of the Eastern Province.

The government and the LTTE traded charges of responsibility to the hacking to death of the civilians.

The violence and military attacks in the war torn areas in Sri Lanka have jeopardized the Norwegian backed effort to bring peace to the island.

Source: Xinhua