Sri Lanka says finds rebel grenades, cyanide at church

COLOMBO, Feb 21 (Reuters) Sri Lankan troops have found Tamil Tiger rebel grenades, cyanide capsules and communications equipment in a Catholic church in the island's besieged far northern Jaffna peninsula, the military said today.

The find comes amid a rash of suspected rebel ambushes and bomb attacks against the military in the peninsula, which is cut off from the rest of Sri Lanka by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) lines.

''It is clear that the LTTE terrorists will use every means ... using even places of worship, to continue their campaign of terror,'' the Media Centre for National Security said of the find in a closed room in St. Mary's Church in Jaffna on Tuesday.

The Tigers, who wear cyanide capsules around their neck to avoid being captured alive and are fighting a new chapter of a two-decade civil war with the state, deny any involvement.

''That's impossible. We never use common buildings or public buildings as a base,'' Tiger military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan said by telephone from Kilinochchi, the rebels' northern stronghold.

''We have no connection with those things. There are so many groups working with the military that have brought in such things, but we have no connection with that whatever.'' The find comes as the foes fight artillery duels across a shared ''border'' that separates government from rebel territory in the far north, where analysts fear the conflict could flare after a series of major land and sea battles in recent months.

Emboldened by the capture of a key eastern Tiger stronghold, the government has vowed to wipe out the rebels, reigniting a civil war that has killed more than 67,000 people since 1983 and an estimated 4,000 people in the past year alone.

The foes have ignored repeated pleas from the international community to halt the conflict.

Thursday will be the fifth anniversary of a tattered 2002 ceasefire pact which now exists only on paper.

REUTERS PDM HT1827