Sri Lanka says rebels shell school, wound students

COLOMBO, Dec 7 (Reuters) Tamil Tiger artillery fire hit a school and its surroundings in northeast Sri Lanka today, killing three civilians including a child and wounding 10 students, the military said.

But the rebels denied targeting the school and instead accused government forces of launching an offensive in the east.

The attack in the eastern district of Trincomalee comes a day after President Mahinda Rajapakse reimposed an anti-terrorism law allowing security forces wide powers to arrest, search and interrogate suspected rebels.

The military said some of the students wounded in the artillery fire were aged 15-16. The civilians, including a 10-year-old child were killed, when a second burst of shells landed nearby, they added.

''They suddenly started firing. We don't have a gun there and there's no camp nearby,'' said military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe. ''Two rounds fell into the school. They must be trying to chase civilians out of the area.'' Tiger military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan denied the rebels had shelled a school, saying it was ''not our tradition'', instead accusing the military of mounting an offensive on their territory in the east, which they were countering.

The rebels had earlier warned ordinary people would suffer and the government would face a backlash for reinstating the Prevention of Terrorism Act, dormant since a 2002 ceasefire.

''The ceasefire agreement put this draconian act to sleep for a while. Now the dragon is given life,'' Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) media coordinator Daya Master told Reuters by telephone from their northern stronghold.

''It is nothing but natural that Tamil youths, not necessarily the LTTE alone, would resort to armed defence again,'' he added.

''What the government has actually done is restart a vicious cycle.

It is the nation and the people who are going to suffer.'' The government, faced with a surge in suicide blasts and clashes, held back from an outright ban on the Tigers, but on Wednesday it unveiled emergency regulations prohibiting supporting or assisting the rebels or giving information detrimental to national security.

Those found guilty faced up to 20 years' jail.

Nordic truce monitors said reinstating the act went against the terms of the truce.

''Just by implementing the Prevention of Terrorism Act is a violation of the ceasefire agreement,'' said Thorfinnur Omarsson, spokesman for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, which oversees a truce that now holds only on paper.

More than 3,000 civilians, troops and rebel fighters have been killed so far this year. Air strikes, suicide attacks and major artillery battles are increasingly common.

President Mahinda Rajapakse, whose brother Gotabhaya narrowly escaped injury in a suicide attack in the capital last week, vowed to eradicate terrorism but said the door remained open to peace talks if the Tigers come in earnest.

''Our government decided to reactivate provisions of the prevention of Terrorism Act to face this cruel and senseless terrorism,'' Rajapakse said in a televised national address late on Wednesday. ''We have no path left but its total defeat.'' Rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran last week declared the Tigers were resuming their independence struggle. Analysts say this means the island's long-running conflict, which has killed more than 67,000 people since 1983, will likely escalate.

REUTERS PDM RAI1836