Senior US official to visit Sri Lanka in peace bid

COLOMBO, Oct 13 (Reuters) U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher and two other foreign envoys will visit Sri Lanka next week to seek a halt to a rash of fierce fighting that threatens to derail peace talks, officials said today.

Boucher's visit, due to start yesterday, comes as the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fight nearly daily artillery battles in the island's far north.

This week, dozens of troops and rebels were killed in one of the deadliest battles since a tattered 2002 truce.

''He is coming to show support for the peace talks and call for an immediate cessation of hostilities,'' an official at the U.S.

embassy in Colombo said.

Mediator Norway's special peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer will also visit the island next week, his second trip in a month, as will Yasushi Akashi, the envoy of the island's chief financial donor, Japan.

The talks between the Sri Lankan government and LTTE representatives are due in Geneva on October 28-29.

Suspected Tiger rebels shot dead one soldier and wounded three in the northern district of Vavuniya today, the military said, a day after the Tigers handed over to the Red Cross bodies of 74 troops they say mounted an offensive into their territory.

The Tigers killed at least 129 troops during Wednesday's battle and wounded nearly 300 more. The military estimates it killed more than 200 rebels, but the Tigers say only 22 of their fighters were killed.

The fighting, some of the worst since the truce, came after the Tigers warned any further incursions by the military could prompt a full-blown return to a war that has killed more than 65,000 people since 1983, including hundreds since the ceasefire.

Some diplomats suspect the Tigers have only agreed to talks to buy time to regroup after a series of military defeats, while senior members of the security forces say they want to kill as many rebels as possible before a dialogue.

Reuters SP DB1844