''After months of fighting, the Sri Lanka - Army Friday cleared the Vakarai town of LTTE terrorists,'' the Defense Ministry said on its website.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, through its TamilNet website, accused the government of shelling the Vakarai hospital and forcing 15,000 civilians to flee the area.

Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe, the military spokesman, said the LTTE had been using a civilian ''shield'' to engage the military with heavy armor from the hospital area.

''Most of the civilians, despite LTTE attempts to keep them, have come into government controlled areas,'' Samarasinghe told Kyodo News. ''They forced the Tigers to let them go.''

The battle for Vakarai, which began at the end of October, involved aerial attacks by air force fighter jets that triggered allegations of civilian casualties.

The majority of the civilians in the area had fled to safety, but an estimated 15,000 were trapped there.

International aid agencies expressed fear for their safety and U.N. and humanitarian agencies urged both sides to the conflict to pay heed to the plight of civilians.

The government consistently accused the Tigers of fighting behind a civilian shield while the LTTE has been alleging major casualties among noncombatants.

In a New Year message early this month, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, the army commander, promised the Eastern Province would be soon cleared of the LTTE.

Vakarai, along the eastern coast, was a key transit point for LTTE for the movement of combatants from the north to the east.

TamilNet said that troops based in two camps at Mankery and Kajuwatte ''have been continuously pounding the besieged Vakarai area with artillery shells from Thursday'' and the situation had worsened by Friday morning.

Nearly 4,000 people were killed in fighting last year despite a tattered 2002 Cease-fire Agreement that now only exists on paper. Discuss this story Published: Fri Jan 19 10:49:45 EST 2007

Deputy Military spokesman Maj. Upali Rajapakse said the pre-emptive strike against the Tamils was conducted as they were preparing to attack army troops in the eastern district of Batticaloa. He said nine rebels were killed and 12 were wounded in the operation.

There was no immediate comment from the rebels.

Separately, the military said Tamil civilians were fleeing the rebel-held village of Vaharai in Batticaloa district, the scene of heavy fighting between government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels over the last few weeks.

A ``large number of people'' are arriving into government-controlled areas from Vaharai, military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said. He did not give an exact number, but said there may be thousands of civilians. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was trying to verify the information.

``We have sent a team to that area and we are checking on that,'' ICRC spokesman Davide Vignati said.

Last week, United Nations said 15,000 Tamil civilians have been trapped by fighting in Vaharai. The government says about 20,000 civilians have moved into government-held areas to escape violence.

Clashes between the military and the Tamil rebels have recently been increasing in the Batticaloa region. At least four soldiers and 12 rebels died in fighting there Tuesday.

Earlier on Friday, Samarasinghe said Tiger artillery and mortar fire had wounded 13 government soldiers late Thursday in a separate confrontation, also in the east.

The military is trying to push the rebels out of the eastern area and regain control of a cluster of rebel-held coastal villages.

The Tigers have been fighting for more than 20 years for a separate homeland for the country's 3.1 million ethnic minority Tamils, who have suffered decades of discrimination by the majority ethnic Sinhalese.

Although both sides claim to be adhering to a Norwegian-brokered 2002 cease-fire, violence has escalated since late 2005 with more than 3,600 people killed last year alone. Published: Fri Jan 19 09:00:52 EST 2007