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| Sri Lanka |
| LTTE ambush kills 2 |
| 2006-04-12 |
| Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels killed two Sri Lankan policemen in an ambush on Wednesday, police said. Diplomats said violence was spiralling out of control, upcoming peace talks looked unlikely and war might beckon. More than 20 people have died since Friday in the island's minority Tamil-dominated north and east. The military have blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for a string of claymore fragmentation mine attacks on security forces. "It was a claymore attack," Senior Superintendent Nihal Samarakoon told Reuters from the northeastern port of Trincomalee, close to the scene of Wednesday's ambush of a police truck. "Two were killed and two were injured. It was the LTTE." A second round of talks between the two sides is due to take place next week in Switzerland, but with the Tigers still to commit themselves to attending, diplomats fear that the meeting may not happen and that the attacks will destroy the 2002 truce. The head of the Nordic-staffed unarmed mission monitoring the truce met the rebels on Monday to discuss the escalation in violence, which has taken diplomats and analysts by surprise. "Oh God," said one western diplomat when told of the latest attack. "It's very bad... there's no other way to describe it. Time is basically running out here. Things are spiralling out of control." The rebels say they want a government safe-conduct for a Sea Tiger vessel to take their commanders from eastern rebel areas to the de facto Tiger capital for talks. If they cannot meet their commanders, they say they will not go to Geneva. The rebels deny carrying out the attacks and blame local groups of Tamil civilians, but analysts and diplomats say the ambushes are too sophisticated to be the work of anyone else. "It seems like the incidents are escalating," head of the Tiger peace secretariat S. Puleedevan told Reuters by satellite phone from rebel territory. "It is very important the Sri Lankan government work so our eastern commanders can come." A senior diplomat said the attacks could be some form of "bizarre brinkmanship" ahead of talks, but that even if the meeting did take place the best that could be hoped for was staving off war, not real progress. With both sides re-arming, the rebels may not want to wait. This is the second spell of serious violence in recent months. In December and January, more than 200 died after a series of similar suspected rebel attacks but tensions fell after the two sides agreed to a first round of talks in Geneva. The rebels say the government has failed to meet its pledge to disarm a renegade group of ex-rebels led by former senior Tiger Karuna Amman, whom they say the army is using to attack them. The army denies the charge. Analysts fear any return to conflict could see Black Tiger suicide bombers attacking the capital, Colombo, scaring investors away from the island's $20 billion economy and hurting a country hard hit by the 2004 tsunami. Civilians, aid workers and foreigners have also been hit by the past week's violence. Two Sri Lankan aid workers died in a claymore attack in the northern army-held Jaffna enclave on Monday, and two British nationals were wounded in an attack on a naval bus on Tuesday that killed 10 sailors and a bus driver. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |