Suspected Sri Lanka rebels kill 4 police in ambush

COLOMBO, May 25 (Reuters) Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels killed four police in a claymore fragmentation mine ambush in Sri Lanka's restive east today, officials said, the latest in a series of attacks on the military.

''There was an explosion in Kattankudi in (the eastern district of) Batticaloa. The Special Task Force officers were travelling in a van to go on duty when the blast happened,'' a police source in the east said, asking not to be named.

More than 270 people have been killed since February in what truce monitors and the Tigers say is now a ''low-intensity war'', including more than 20 security forces personnel and civilians in the past week. Shootings, claymore blasts and clashes now occur near daily in the north and east.

REUTERS DKS VC0848