By Ranga Sirilal

COLOMBO, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Thirty-nine Tamil Tiger rebels and six soldiers were killed in fighting in Sri Lanka's north on Monday, the military said.

Dozens more combatants were wounded in the fighting in the northwestern district of Mannar and northern Jaffna peninsula, where a renewed civil war is now focused amid near-daily air raids, bombings and land and sea battles.

The fighting came two days after the military said they had attacked a line of Tamil Tiger rebel bunkers in South of Adampan, in Mannar.

"The LTTE attacked the troops at positions we captured last Saturday in South of Adampan," said Military Spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara.

"We have successfully repulsed the attack and retaliated," he said, adding that intercepted communications confirmed 35 rebels were killed.

Nanayakkara also said six soldiers died and 20 were injured in the fighting and said the military was holding the captured bunker line.

The military also said a small bomb was defused in Colombo, near the official residence of the Air Force commander.

Four rebel fighters were killed in a separate clash in Muhamalai, which sits on a heavily-defended "border" that separates government from rebel-held territory in the far northern Jaffna peninsula, the military said.

The Tigers, who are seeking to carve out an independent state in north and east Sri Lanka, were not immediately available for comment on the fighting. There were no independent accounts of how many people were killed or what had happened.

Analysts say both sides tend to overstate enemy losses and play down their own.

The military said a further 64 Tigers and six soldier were killed in clashes in Jaffna the northern districts of Vavuniya and Mannar at the weekend.

Sri Lanka's army has vowed to wipe out the Tigers militarily, and is seeking to drive the rebels out of Mannar after evicting them earlier this year from vast swathes of jungle terrain they controlled in the east.

More than 5,000 people have been killed in fighting between the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighters since early 2006 alone, taking the death toll since the war erupted in 1983 to around 70,000.

Military analysts say there is no clear winner on the horizon, and fear the war could grind on for years.

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