A flotilla of rebel boats launched a deadly raid yesterday on a navy camp in northern Sri Lanka, hours before a bomb exploded near an army bus in the capital killing one soldier and wounding six people.

The surge in violence came amid a deepening conflict between the government and separatist Tamil Tiger rebels that has shattered an internationally backed peace process and left at least 5,000 people dead in the past 18 months.

The Tamil Tigers attacked the small navy base in the village of Delft just after midnight, rebel and government officials said. The

details of what happened, though, were sharply in dispute.

Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan said Tiger forces had killed 35 sailors and lost four of their own fighters. Military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said four sailors had been killed, four wounded and 18 Tigers killed.

The military and the rebels routinely deny and contradict each other's casualty tolls, and nearly all battles occur in isolated parts of the island nation off-limits to journalists or other outsiders.

"The fighting lasted only 20 minutes and we completely overran the camp," Ilanthirayan told

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The Associated Press by telephone. The rebel forces then fled the scene by boat, he said. "Our attacking unit counted 35 bodies during the time they were in (the camp) but had to come back quickly," he said.

Ilanthirayan said the rebels attacked in about 12 boats, and none were sunk. Samarasinghe said government naval forces sank two rebel boats, and air force planes sank two more.

Hours later in Colombo, the capital, a bomb exploded near a bus carrying soldiers.

The bomb, attached to a motorcycle parked in a crowded shopping area near the port, exploded as the bus went past, said Defence Ministry spokesman Lt Col Upali Rajapakse. Four soldiers and three civilians were wounded, he said. One soldier later died in hospital, he said.

Passers-by rushed to help the victims.

"Soon after the explosion, the bus burst into flames, and then I brought the injured to the hospital, " said Colombo resident Chandana Mahanama, who was

travelling in his car just behind the bus when the bomb went off.

Rajapakse blamed the rebels for the bus bombing, but Ilanthirayan denied they were involved.

The violence occurred one day after the International Committee of the Red Cross announced it had withdrawn its staff from two checkpoints between government-held and rebel areas in northern Sri Lanka because of the escalating violence.

Without the presence of the ICRC, the military will shut down the checkpoints, stopping aid workers and cease-fire monitors from travelling between rebel-held and government areas.

The rebels have fought the government since 1983 to create a separate homeland for the island nation's ethnic Tamil minority, who have suffered decades of discrimination under the Sinhalese-dominated government.

Nearly 70,000 people have died in the conflict, including about 5,000 killed since December 2005, when violence flared despite a 2002 ceasefire that is now in tatters.