Mortar blast wounds four children in Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, Oct 26 (Reuters) A mortar bomb explosion wounded seven people, including four children, in Sri Lanka's east today, after a child attempted to lift the buried device, the military said.

The Sri Lankan military said the blast took place in the Chenkaladi area in Batticaloa district.

The 81-mm mortar bomb had been buried in the backyard of the children's house after being fired a week ago by Tamil Tiger rebels at a nearby army post, the military said on its Web site. One of the injured children was aged two.

Earlier today, three members of a breakaway faction of the Tigers were killed and eight wounded in a firefight with the main guerrilla group, a spokesman for the splinter outfit said.

The clash occurred in Chenkaladi when members of Tamileela Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) tried to stop Tiger rebels from infiltrating into a government-controlled area.

''We have ambushed the Tigers who tried to infiltrate and, in the fighting, three TMVP military wing cadres were killed,'' Thangaweel Thuyawan, spokesman for the group, told Reuters.

The military said eight TMVP members were seriously wounded in the incident, which they described as a Tiger grenade attack outside the faction's political office.

The violence occurred two days ahead of peace talks between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Geneva in an attempt to ease the country's ethnic conflict that has killed more than 65,000 people since 1983.

The TMVP, led by renegade LTTE commander Karuna, broke away from the main rebel group in 2004 with an estimated 6,000 fighters and the LTTE says he is backed by the military.

The LTTE is fighting for an independent homeland for the island nation's minority Tamils.

REUTERS DKB BS1653