Bomb defused in Sri Lankan capital after US raid

COLOMBO, Aug 22: Bomb squad officers defused explosives strapped to a vegetable-laden pushbike at a market in Sri Lanka's capital today, just hours after US officials said they had arrested suspected rebel arms procurers.

Officials said suspected Tamil Tiger rebels had packed 15 kg of explosives around a Claymore fragmentation mine, a weapon often used on the military in recent months.

Bomb squad officers said the device was found during a random check in Borella market in eastern Colombo, overlooking a busy road.

The find comes after two bomb attacks and an assassination in Colombo this month and after a suspected Tiger front threatened to bomb civilian targets.

Sporadic violence continued in the north and east, the fourth week of the worst fighting between government forces and the rebels since a 2002 ceasefire. The truce, international monitors say, is now dead in all but name.

Thousands of residents trapped by the fighting are waiting for aid to be shipped to the Tamil-dominated north.

''I start the day with a cup of tea without milk or sugar, then bicycle 11 km to work, and today must live on just one meal a day,'' said 49-year-old undertaker Tharmalingam Suppiah in the northern town of Jaffna.

Business, he said, was bad, despite the killing.

''They take the bodies elsewhere,'' he said. ''We are only getting two-three bodies a day.'' US officials said overnight more than one dozen people were arrested on suspicion of trying to provide money and surface-to-air missiles to the Tigers, amid a probe across more than 10 countries.

Analysts say the Tigers -- who have been banned as a terrorist organisation by countries including the United States, India, Britain and the European Union -- have used the past four years of ceasefire to regroup and rearm, and have smuggled a lethal arsenal into the country.

Several people who had agreed to pay more than 900,000 dollar for hundreds of AK-47 rifles and 50 to 100 Russian-made surface-to-air missiles to shoot down Israeli made jets like those used by the Sri Lankan Air Force were nabbed in a New York Sting operation, according to US court documents.

Officials said a ship laden with emergency supplies and flying a Red Cross flag was due to set sail today for Jaffna -- a journey expected to take up to three days.

Thousands of families have fled their homes on Jaffna peninsula, many taking refuge in churches or relatives' homes.

Aid workers say more than 160,000 people have been displaced in the north and east because of fighting all sides estimate has killed hundreds.

FOOD SCARCE Shortages are also rising fast in the rebel-held heartland south of Jaffna, cut off for most of last two weeks after the army closed checkpoints. Some refrigerators in aid worker compounds have even been raided in the northern rebel base of Kilinochchi.

The army is gradually relaxing an indefinite curfew, lifted early today in Jaffna for a Hindu festival.

The Tigers and the military accuse each other of being the aggressor, but both maintain they are honouring the ceasefire.

Analysts and diplomats say both sides are flouting it, and see no commitment for an end to a two-decade war that has killed over 65,000 people.

Reporters Without Borders joined a chorus of rights groups in condemning the killing of a former minority Tamil politician and newspaper director gunned down in Jaffna at the weekend.

''All parties, especially the pro-government Tamil paramilitaries, must stop targeting civilians, journalists and humanitarian workers,'' the group said in a statement. ''The press is again the victim of Sri Lanka's dirty war, and the government is partly to blame for this hellish cycle of violence.'' Nordic truce monitors yesterday said they were temporarily withdrawing to Colombo to regroup ahead of a September 1 ultimatum the Tigers have given their European Union members to quit the island, which leaves them with too few staff to do their job properly.

A return to peace talks is a dim and distant prospect and diplomats say it will likely be years at best before the Tigers, who have fought for two decades for a separate homeland for minority Tamils, are removed from any terror lists.

REUTERS

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