Rebel blast kills policeman in Sri Lanka park

COLOMBO, Dec 27 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels detonated a mine near a children's park in the north of the island today, killing a police officer, the military said.

The officer was on patrol outside the park in the town of Vavuniya when the claymore mine exploded, the military said in a statement.

Another claymore attack was averted when police, acting on a tip-off from a civilian, killed a Tiger guerrilla who was trying to plant a mine in the eastern district of Batticaloa.

Fighting between Sri Lankan forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has intensified in the north and east this year, despite a 2002 ceasefire that international monitors say now exists only on paper.

Soldiers also shot dead two Tiger rebels who tried to stage an attack across a fighting line dividing the two sides in the northern Jaffna peninsula early today.

More than 3,000 civilians, troops and rebel fighters have been killed this year in a series of ambushes, air raids, ground and naval battles and suicide bombings. Many fear that the country may be returning to a full-blown war that has killed more than 67,000 people since 1983.

REUTERS PB VC1628