Fourteen Tamil Tigers and a Sri Lankan soldier were killed in a series of clashes over the weekend.
Troops killed seven Tigers fighters in the northern district of Vavuniya yesterday, while six others were killed in separate incidents on Saturday. Troops shot dead one rebel early today.
A Buddhist monk was also gunned down today in a temple in the northeastern district of Trincomalee, in an attack the rebels and government each blamed on the other.
The military said today it has begun resettling 29,000 refugees in captured rebel terrain in the north of the island.
An army spokesman said troops started to resettle thousands of refugees today along a coastal strip in the eastern district of Batticaloa, which was wrested from the Tigers in recent months.
International aid groups as well as United Nations agencies have voiced concern that the government is forcing some of more than 100,000 people living in camps or with relatives in Batticaloa to return home against their will to areas ravaged by fighting.
The death toll from a two-decade civil war that has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983 is rising daily, and analysts and diplomats fear a conflict that has displaced over 500,000 people will escalate.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa has flatly rejected Tiger demands for an independent state in the island's north and east, and his government has vowed to wipe out the Tigers militarily.
The Tigers have rejected devolution proposals made by Mr Rajapaksa.