Suspected Lanka rebel ambushes kill 1, hurt 12

Colombo, July 17: Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels killed one soldier and injured 12 other people, including four civilians, in a series of deadly mine ambushes in northern and eastern Sri Lanka today, officials said.

The soldier was killed in a blast in the northern army-held Jaffna peninsula, while five navy sailors were injured in the eastern district of Trincomalee and another blast hit the nortwestern district of Mannar -- all three districts heavily scarred by a two-decade civil war.

The attacks were part of a wave of violence on the island in the past few months that has left a 2002 ceasefire in tatters and kindled fears that the war may resume.

''The attacks were obviously by the Tigers,'' said a military spokesman. The attackers used deadly Claymore fragmentation mines, which spray hundreds of ball bearings which can rip through the bodies of vehicles.

More than 700 people have been killed so far this year alone. At least 65,000 people were killed in the war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which raged from 1983 until the 2002 ceasefire.

Many companies are holding back investing in the 23 billion dollar economy because of the renewed fighting, while reconstruction after the deadly December, 2001 tsunami has been affected in some areas.

Residents in Jaffna, where many buildings are still in ruins, fear war could resume -- and they will be stuck between the Tigers on one side and around 50,000 soldiers stationed there. Many ordinary Tamils resent what they see as military occupation of their ancestral homeland.

''Life is not safe,'' said 48-year-old housewife Ragini Selvanayagam. Under government control we will never be safe.

The LTTE has to come back.'' Violent crime is also rising in Jaffna, which residents blame on armed groups the Tigers say are government-backed.

Three civilians were hacked to death in Jaffna over the weekend, but officials said they had been involved in illegal sand mining and that the murders were not related to the conflict.

Sri Lanka's peace process is completely deadlocked.

While the government and the Tigers both say they remain committed to the truce, observers say there is little hope of renewed peace talks in the short to medium term.

The government has rejected outright the Tigers' calls for a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils in the north and east, where the rebels already run a de facto state, and analysts say the Tigers are buying time to rearm and regroup and ultimately will settle for nothing less than a breakaway state.

Reuters

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