By Ranga Sirilal

COLOMBO, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan troops fought Tamil Tiger rebels on Tuesday in rare clash in a national park in the nation's south, far from the northern battlefront where at least 28 were killed in a raging offensive, the military said.

The military believes a small group of about 35 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels are roaming the generally peaceful south, home to many of the Indian Ocean island country's popular tourist attractions, including the expansive Yala National Park.

"Troops on patrol saw two terrorists who came to attack them. The soldiers fired on them and they retaliated and fled. One soldier was injured," a military spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.

Sri Lanka's tourism authority said August tourist arrivals had fallen 31.4 percent year-on-year. Officials said the drop in numbers was partly due to the increasing violence in the war.

The attack took place in a southwestern sector of Yala National Park, not far from the island's southern coast and hundreds of kilometres from the northern battlefront where the military has stepped a drive to retake rebel-held turf.

In the north, soldiers in separate battles killed 28 guerrillas and wounded 34.

Three soldiers were wounded in the fighting, which took place as troops stormed a series of concrete bunkers built by the LTTE, the military said.

The military also said it had gotten within 4.5 km (2 miles) of the rebels' headquarters at Kilinochchi town, a symbolic and strategic target for the army located 330 km (205 miles) miles north of the capital Colombo.

There was no independent confirmation of the casualties, and the rebels could not be reached for comment.

Journalists are barred from the war zone as are most independent observers and getting a clear picture of the daily death and casualty toll is almost impossible.

The Tigers are on terrorism lists in the United States, the European Union and and India. They have fought a war since 1983 to establish a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's ethnic minority Tamils and have silenced more moderate Tamil political voices during that time.

Since independence from Britain in 1948, Sri Lanka has been ruled by governments led by the Sinhalese majority, 75 percent of the nation's 21 million people. (Writing by Bryson Hull; Editing by Valerie Lee)

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