BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka — The Tamil Tigers claimed yesterday that the Sri Lankan air force killed 61 teenage girls when it bombed a rebel compound in the northeast of the country.

But the government, whose exchanges with the rebels have taken the country back to the brink of all-out civil war, said the attack was aimed at a known rebel center in Mullaitivu district and had not deliberately targeted civilians.

However, it ordered all schools in government-controlled areas to close for fear of retaliation by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.The incident appeared to have extinguished any hope of a rapid end to weeks of fighting.

Tiger rebels in Colombo responded within hours by bombing a diplomatic convoy carrying the Pakistani high commissioner, killing four bodyguards and three civilians. Pakistan is a leading supplier of arms to the Sri Lanka army.

The rebels had claimed that aircraft dropped 16 bombs on a Tiger “orphanage.” All of the victims were believed to be teenage girls.

However, diplomats said the 11-building complex was a former orphanage, and one of its current uses was for vocational training. Pictures of rows of dead and injured were posted on the pro-Tiger Tamilnet website, apparently confirming rebel claims. Casualties were taken to two hospitals in rebel-held territory in the north.One European diplomat counted 19 bodies at one of the hospitals.

The Sri Lankan government, which accuses the rebels of using civilians as human shields, vigorously denied that it had hit a civilian target, saying the compound was a rebel training center.

“It is a lie to say that schoolchildren were targeted,” a government spokesman, Chandrapala Liyanage, said.