Renegades kill 4 Sri Lanka Tamil Tigers--police

COLOMBO, June 27 (Reuters) Four Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in an attack by a rival faction in Sri Lanka early today and a soldier was shot dead overnight, police said, as spiralling violence stoked fears of renewed civil war.

The attack in an area controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the restive east came a day after a suspected Tiger suicide bomber assassinated the army deputy chief of staff. A wave of attacks on the island has now killed around 700 people so far this year.

Nihal Karunaratne, deputy inspector of police for the eastern districts of Batticaloa and Ampara, said four cadres of the Tamil Tigers, who are fighting for an independent homeland, had been attacked and killed in Vakarai in Batticaloa.

He blamed the attack on a breakaway Tamil group led by a former rebel commander called Karuna who is locked in a bloody feud with the mainstream group. The LTTE accuses the army of helping Karuna.

The LTTE confirmed an attack had happened, but said only one of their fighters had been killed and blamed the army.

''It is true an incident of this nature has taken place,'' said Daya Mohan, Tiger political leader in Batticaloa.

A military spokesman said a soldier had been shot dead by suspected Tigers in a separate incident in the district of Trincomalee, further north. He also said troops had found three fragmentation mines primed for an ambush.

U N Secretary General Kofi Annan condemned yesterday's suicide attack, and neighbouring India called on both sides in Sri Lanka to restart dialogue aimed at a political solution to the strife that has killed around 65,000 people since 1983.

''The secretary-general reiterates that no cause can justify such acts of violence. The secretary-general appeals to the parties to redouble their efforts to resume peace talks,'' U N chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement overnight.

Sri Lanka's military said yesterday it was reintroducing security measures enforced in government-controlled areas before the 2002 ceasefire, particularly at border crossings to rebel territory.

''It means more roadblocks, more security checks,'' said military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe.

Sri Lanka's tortuous peace process is deadlocked and teetering on collapse. The government and rebels are sharply divided over the Tigers' demands for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east, and violence is escalating in apparent tit-for-tat attacks.

The Tigers are now demanding that truce monitors from European Union states must pull out by September 1 in the wake of an EU ban on them as a terrorist organisation. Many observers fear a pullout would create a dangerous vacuum.

The political leader of the Tiger rebels, S P Thamilselvan, told Reuters this month that the LTTE would use all strategies -- including suicide bombers -- if war resumed in earnest.

Reuters SY DB1034