Top Sri Lanka rebel killed as war fears grow

Colombo, May 21: A top Tamil Tiger rebel commander was killed in a clash in Sri Lanka's restive east today, military sources said, while mine and grenade attacks killed two soldiers and injured a foreign aid worker amid fears of a return to civil war.

Officials said Col. Ramanan, one of the top Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) commanders in the eastern district of Batticaloa, was likely assassinated by a group of former comrades led by a renegade commander called Col Karuna, who split with the mainstream rebels in 2004.

''We suspect he was killed in a clash with the Karuna faction,'' a military source said on condition of anonymity.

The Tigers were not immediately available for comment, but pro-rebel Web site www.tamilnet.com accused army snipers of assassinating Ramanan -- one of the highest-ranking Tigers killed since a 2002 ceasefire that some fear may be about to collapse.

The Tigers have pulled out of peace talks indefinitely, accusing the government of failing to honour a pledge to disarm armed groups -- particularly the Karuna faction -- who they accuse the military of helping attack their fighters.

Many fear the island's two-decade civil war, in which more than 64,000 people died and hundreds of thousands more were displaced, is about to reignite.

With more than 270 troops and civilians killed since early April, the rebels and the military are fighting increasingly frequent skirmishes with mortars and rocket propelled grenades near their forward defence lines in the north and east of the island.

The Tigers and Nordic truce monitors both now say Sri Lanka is locked in a ''low intensity war'', though the government disagrees and says it is only retaliating in limited bursts.

In the army-held Jaffna peninsula in the far north today dozens of Tamil families packed their belongings -- including fishing boats -- into trucks and headed for Tiger-held territory, afraid after a whole family was gunned down a week ago.

Relief workers said hundreds of people were seeking refuge in two churches in Jaffna following the shooting last week of 12 people -- including a four-month old baby and a four-year-old -- at their home on an islet near Jaffna.

Those deaths were the latest in a number of extrajudicial killings of civilians which local residents blamed on either the military or armed groups the Tigers say they are working with.

Truce monitors say they suspect troops have been involved in some civilian killings, which the government vehemently denies.

However, local residents said the exodus of families came after a suspected Tamil Tiger front put up posters warning the local population they had three days to leave the area -- and after the Navy said they could not guarantee their safety.

''We have to seek our own protection. That is why we are leaving,'' said a 56-year-old father of five, seeking refuge in a church in Jaffna en route to dense jungle controlled by the rebels nearby. He refused to give his name for fear of reprisal.

The military said dozens more Tamils had made their way to the northwestern district of Mannar to pay smugglers to take them to India aboard fishing boats. The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have fled to India since January.

Reuters