<div><p>Sri Lankan troops captured a rebel-held town in the island's north following heavy fighting that killed a large group of guerrillas, the defence ministry said Friday.</p><p>Security forces took the town of Maniyakkulam, 25 kilometres (15 miles) southwest of the military's primary target of Kilinochchi, the political capital of the Tamil Tiger rebels, the ministry said.</p><p>It did not say how many Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) guerrillas were killed in Thursday's fighting.</p><p>The military has previously issued daily statements giving its estimates for the number of Tigers killed and its own casualties. The Tigers have rarely given out casualty figures.</p><p>The latest violence forced the return of a food convoy that the United Nations was trying to escort into the rebel-held Wanni region, the organisation said.</p><p>The UN office said in a statement Friday it was sending the convoy once again to the rebel-held area after "renewed assurances from both parties to the conflict that the convoy would be able to proceed ... unhindered."</p><p>The 50-truck convoy, with 750 tonnes of aid for an estimated 230,000 people, turned back on Thursday afternoon.</p><p>The rebels accused the military of bombing bridges in rebel-held areas in a bid to stop food reaching civilians. The military said the guerrillas fired at the convoy.</p><p>International aid agencies have left the troubled region after a government order, leaving only the International Committee of the Red Cross.</p><p>The Sri Lankan government, which pulled out of a Norwegian-backed truce with the rebels in January, is trying to capture the rebel political headquarters of Kilinochchi, 330 kilometres north of the Sri Lankan capital Colombo.</p><p>Sri Lanka's ethnic Sinhalese-dominated government is engaged in one of its biggest-ever offensives against the Tamil Tigers, who control part of the north of the island and want to carve out a separate state.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=35138269&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

Copyright 2008  <a href="http://www.afp.com/english/links/?pid=copyright">AFP Asian Edition</a></div></div>