Three Air Force personnel and four civilians were killed Friday morning in a Claymore mine explosion carried out by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels in eastern Sri Lanka, officials from the Defense Ministry said.

Military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said that they were killed when the bus they were traveling in came under an attack by a Claymore mine at about 09:30 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) at Morawewa area in the Trincomalee district.

Two Air Force personnel and four civilians were also injured in the explosion, Nanayakkara said, adding "it definitely was carried out by Tamil Tiger rebels."

Government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE) are currently engaged in a fierce battle in the north, with the troops getting upper hand by taking most of the territory formerly controlled by the rebel group.

Military leaders also said that the remaining territory of the LTTE will be bagged by the troops within weeks, while some analysts maintain that the LTTE still has several thousand hard-core fighters to hit back.

Claiming discrimination at the hands of majority Sinhalese-dominated governments, the LTTE has been fighting for more than two decades to set up an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east.

More than 70,000 people have been killed so far in one of Asia' s longest civil wars.

(Xinhua News Agency January 9, 2009)