Sri Lanka strikes stop but 5 die in mine blasts

COLOMBO, Apr 27 (Reuters) Sri Lanka stopped bombing Tamil Tiger targets and reopened borders with rebel territory today but fragmentation mine blasts killed five, police said, as the island teetered on the brink of war.

Both sides vowed to retaliate if attacked again after heavy firing on Tuesday night and on Wednesday caused thousands to flee their homes and raised fears a 2002 ceasefire would collapse.

If violence stops, diplomats say peace talks might still be possible. But if it resumes, they fear a return to a two-decade-old civil war that has killed more than 64,000.

Police in the army-held Jaffna enclave in the north said a suspected Tiger claymore mine blast killed two sailors.

A second attack near the northwest coast killed three soldiers and wounded two, they said, while two policemen were hurt in a blast in the same area earlier in the day.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one senior government official said the bombing was halted for humanitarian reasons and the raids could restart, but army spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said claymore blasts would not provoke air attacks.

''It was suspected LTTE. But for a claymore mine blast we don't respond with air strikes,'' Samarasinghe said after the first blast.

The strikes on Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) territory in the northeast followed a suspected Tiger suicide bomb attack on Colombo's army headquarters which killed 10 and wounded the army commander.

Ambassadors from Sri Lanka's main donors met President Mahinda Rajapakse on Thursday. Diplomats said that while they understood the government was provoked, they wanted restraint.

''Even if they have stopped, the door is still open for many dangerous moments ahead,'' said a Western diplomat. Norway, Japan, the European Union and the United States will meet in Oslo on Friday to discuss the situation.

TIGERS SAY ''GENOCIDE'' Ratings agency Standard and Poor's has reduced its rating on the 20 billion dollars economy on fears of renewed violence, but the stock market clawed higher on the lack of new bombing.

In a statement on their official Web site, the Tigers called the government attacks ''attempted genocide''.

Another pro-rebel Web site, www.tamilnet.com, quoted Tiger northeastern political chief S. Elilan as saying the rebels awaited instructions from their leadership, but any retaliation would be ''catastrophically disabling and devastating''.

Truce monitors said they had been told 19 people had died in the raids near the northeastern port of Trincomalee and in an explosion in nearby government territory.

The Tigers said 40,000 fled their homes after the raids, but the United Nations said they believed that was too high.

''The figures we can't confirm for now but people from the coastal areas have fled,'' said Yvonne Dunton, an International Committee of the Red Cross delegate in Trincomalee. ''They're moving into schools and the jungle.'' In the army-held Tamil-majority Jaffna enclave, residents hoarded food and fuel after the road south through rebel territory was closed, but officials said it had been reopened and supplies were on the way.

Analysts say the Tigers are angry the government has done nothing to rein in renegade ex-rebels, who Nordic truce monitors say have been operating from government territory and attacking the mainstream rebels.

REUTERS CH PM2045