(Corrects to northwestern in lead) COLOMBO, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan soldiers started a new offensive on Saturday to drive the Tamil Tiger rebels from the northwestern district of Mannar, while the rebels said a military claymore killed three civilians in the same area. The offensive comes days after Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said the country had no plans for a major operation on rebel-held territory. The clashes in Mannar and Vavuniya are the latest in a spate of land and sea clashes, ambushes and air raids between the armed forces and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels. Military Spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said the new operation was a "humanitarian offensive to liberate about 6,000 to 7,000 people". Samarasinghe said that in a separate incident on Friday, the military killed 11 Tamil Tiger rebels and nine soldiers were wounded in the fighting. "There was a threat to Forward Defence Lines from LTTE and we went and attacked them," Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said. An estimated 5,000 people have died since last year in renewed fighting after a peace process collapsed. The civil war erupted in 1983 about 70,000 people have died and hundreds of thousands displaced. The Tigers, who say they are fighting for an independent state for minority ethnic Tamils in the north and east, were not immediately available for comment on the new offensive, but said three civilians were killed by a Sri Lankan "Deep Penetration Unit" operating in the rebel held aria. "A claymore was exploded targeting the fleeing civilians. Three dead bodies...have been taken to the hospital," Selvy Navaruban, Tiger spokeswomen on humanitarian issues and human rights, told Reuters by phone. In an e-mailed statement, the rebels said they killed one soldier as the military attempted to infiltrate rebel held areas. "One LTTE front liner (also) lost his life in that incident," the statement said. Fighting between the state and rebels is now focused in the north after the military evicted the Tigers from their last stronghold in the east. However, analysts see no clear winner on the horizon and fear the fighting could grind on for years.
