The bullet-riddled bodies of the eight men were found following a search operation in the Wilpattu national park in the northwest of the island, a military official said.

Another official in the region said the victims were on their way to identify locations for setting up military detachments on the perimeters of the sprawling wildlife sanctuary, when they were ambushed on Friday.

There was no immediate word from the Tamil Tigers about the latest attack, but the guerrillas said they were returning the bodies of four police commandos killed in heavy fighting raging in the island's restive eastern province.

Tamil Tiger spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan said the rebels buried two other bodies of elite Special Task Force (STF) commandos because they were too mutilated.

A total of nine STF commandos were killed in Friday's confrontations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Tigers said, adding that they lost only one of their combatants in the district of Ampara.

Three bodies of the STF commandos were already with the military, officials said adding that 16 commandos suffered injuries following Friday's heavy shell attacks.

Fighting raged in the area Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of the latest casualties.

In the adjoining district of Batticaloa, troops kept up shelling of suspected Tiger positions in a new offensive to advance into a jungle area held by the guerrillas.

In the east of the island, government troops, backed by artillery and multi-barrel rocket fire, were on the offensive in the districts of Batticaloa and Ampara, where the Tigers control a vast jungle area known as Thoppigala.

The latest offensive is the biggest since troops captured the town of Vakarai from the Tigers in January after weeks of heavy fighting in Batticaloa district.

The government has said it wants to clear the entire eastern province of Tamil Tiger rebels, and Thoppigala is the last rebel bastion in Batticaloa and Ampara districts.

More than 4,000 people have been killed in escalating fighting since December 2005 even though the two sides agreed to a truce five years ago.