Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels on Sunday fired mortar and artillery at two military camps in the eastern district of Batticaloa but caused no casualties, defense officials said.

The first attack on the Kiran camp came around 5:20 a.m. local time (2350 GMT) and the exchange of mortar and artillery fire continued for over two hours, the officials said. The other attack, coming 20 minutes later, was on the Varani camp.

In neighboring Ampara district, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels attacked the Pullimalai camp belonging to the police's Special Task Force (STF) at around 7:30 p.m. local time ( 1400 GMT) Saturday night.

However, no STF men were injured in the barrage of 60 mm mortar fire, the defense officials said.

The clashes continue in the aftermath of the military's success over the rebels in capturing the key LTTE location of Sampur in the east.

On Sept. 4 the military gained full control of Sampur in a major military thrust against the rebels.

The government said it wanted to neutralize the rebels' fire power capacity in Sampur which was used by the LTTE to attack the strategic eastern port of Trincomalee.

Meanwhile, the military said on Sunday that another 1,000 civilians trapped in the northern Jaffna peninsula were ferried to Trincomalee in the early hours.

Commander D. K. P. Dassanayake, the Navy spokesman, said the ferry "Jetliner" departed the northern port of Kankesanturai and among the civilians were at least 120 people who held foreign passports.

Dassanayake said this was the fourth such civilian ferry organized by the military after thousands of civilians got trapped in Jaffna with the outbreak of clashes between the LTTE and the military on Aug. 11.

Over 40,000 people were displaced from Jaffna as a result of the clashes and now the civilians complain of severe food shortages with long queues forming for essentials.

However, the government having co-ordinated several loads of essential food items to the peninsula maintains that there was no room for shortage.

Source: Xinhua