Colombo, July 14 (Reuters): At least 12 Sri Lankan soldiers and four Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in a firefight in the island’s restive east today, truce monitors said, in one of the worst military clashes since a 2002 ceasefire.

Nordic monitors and Red Cross officials said they had seen the corpses, while the military said a 13th soldier was still missing and four others were injured.

The Tigers insisted they had shot dead 22 people in the firefight, and said the balance likely belonged to a breakaway faction of former comrades led by renegade commander Karuna, whom they accuse the military of helping to mount attacks.

Kayal Viliyan, a senior rebel in the Tigers’ eastern political office in the district of Batticaloa, said around 60 troops had entered Tiger territory and been surrounded by about 200 rebels. “We have found 22 bodies, and we are still searching,” he said by telephone from Batticaloa. “They came into our area and we retaliated ... We have captured one soldier.” “The government does not want to admit the number of Karuna people killed in the attack,” he added.

It was not immediately clear why the Tigers did not show the Red Cross evidence of any dead Karuna fighters killed in the clash in Batticaloa, where the dividing line between government- and rebel-held areas is often porous and ill-defined.

“Our patrol was fired upon with heavy weapons and mortars, close to an army camp. Additional troops were rushed to the area, and when they arrived, the Tigers surrounded them,” said a military spokesman, Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe.