Sri Lankans await aid as US raids Tiger suspects

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

COLOMBO, Aug 22 (Reuters) Thousands of hungry Sri Lankan Tamils, trapped by a new bout of war between the Tamil Tigers and the military, desperately waited today for aid to be shipped north, as suspected rebel arms procurers were arrested in the United States.

US officials said overnight more than a 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.

Sporadic violence continued in Sri Lanka's north and east before dawn today during the fourth week of the worst fighting since a 2002 ceasefire, which monitors say is now dead in all but name.

''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 Jaffna undertaker Tharmalingam Suppiah, who says business is bad despite the killing.

''They take the bodies elsewhere,'' he said. ''We are only getting two-three bodies a day.'' Officials said a ship laden with emergency supplies and flying a Red Cross flag was due today to begin an arduous sail counter-clockwise around nearly two-thirds of Sri Lanka's coastline to reach Jaffna -- a journey expected to take up to three days.

Thousands of families have fled their homes in the 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.

Suspected Tiger rebels mounted sporadic attacks on army positions in the eastern district of Batticaloa overnight, but there were no major confrontations.

INDEFINITE CURFEW The army said it planned to gradually reduce an indefinite curfew in Jaffna lifted for a few hours each day.

''They fired around 50 mortars at an army detachment in Batticaloa. We retaliated, but there was no major damage,'' said a military spokesman.

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 to sue for an end to a two-decade war that has killed over 65,000 people.

Nordic truce monitors said yesterday 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.

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.

''These defendants allegedly sought to obtain, through a variety of means, weapons and materials to carry out a deadly campaign of violence,'' US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in statement.

Others had tried to bribe law enforcement officers posing as State Department officials to remove the group from the terrorist organisation list the US put them on in 1997.

However, 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 DKA VC1003

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