Sri Lanka rebel blast kills three, injures 16 -Military

COLOMBO, Feb 21 (Reuters) Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels killed three people and wounded 16 with a roadside bomb in Sri Lanka's restive east, the military said today, the latest in a spree of deadly attacks amid renewed civil war.

A police inspector and two civilians were killed in the blast near Valachchenai in the island's eastern district of Batticaloa, while four police, two soldiers and 10 civilian passers-by were wounded.

''It was a Claymore (fragmentation mine) fixed to a pushbike,'' said military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe. ''It targeted a police vehicle which had been on a patrol.'' ''It was the LTTE, who else?'' The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were not immediately available for comment on the attack, which comes on the heels of a series of similar attacks analysts say are definitely their work.

The Tigers routinely deny involvement in attacks.

In a separate incident, the military said it had found Tiger grenades, cyanide capsules and communications equipment in a Catholic church in the island's besieged far northern Jaffna peninsula yesterday.

The foes have ignored repeated pleas from the international community to halt a war that has killed more than 67,000 people since 1983.

Tomorrow will be the fifth anniversary of a 2002 ceasefire pact which now exists only on paper, and analysts fear the ground reality -- war -- is set to escalate.

REUTERS AB RN2059