COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Seven separatist guerrillas were killed in a gun battle with the police in Sri Lanka's troubled northern Jaffna district Saturday, state radio said. It said the battle erupted when the guerrillas, traveling in a van, tried to ignore the order of a police patrol to halt.
The radio said four of the rebels were identified as members of a guerrilla group called Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization. The guerrillas are fighting to set up a separate state in the northern and eastern provinces of the island for the nation's minority Tamil community.
