SL troops kill three rebels, journo shot dead

Colombo, Aug 1: Sri Lankan troops killed three Tamil Tiger rebels in the island's restive northwest early today, the military said, while unknown gunmen dragged a trainee journalist into the street in the far north and shot him dead.

The killings came a day after suspected Tamil Tiger rebels killed three soldiers with a roadside bomb in the northern army-held Jaffna peninsula, which is cut off from the rest of the island by rebel lines.

''Troops confronted fleeing terrorists in Trincomalee,'' said military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe. ''We have recovered three dead bodies and five T-56 (assualt rifles).'' He said the guerrillas were fleeing from a vast swathe of eastern Sri Lanka called Thoppigala, which troops seized from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after months of fighting.

The Tigers were not immediately available for comment, and there was no independent account of what had happened.

In a separate incident, police said gunmen shot dead a 22-year-old former student union activist and trainee online journalist in Jaffna, which international press groups describe as one of the most dangerous places in the world to cover.

Eleven other journalists and media workers have been killed since late 2005 as the island descended into a new chapter of a two-decade civil war that has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983, around 4,500 of those since last year alone.

Driven out of their last foothold in the east by military offensives in recent months, the Tigers have vowed to strike at major economic and military targets in a bid to cripple the island's 23 billion dollars economy.

They say peace is impossible with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has vowed to wrest control of all rebel-held territory and rejects their demands for an independent state.

Analysts say that sets the stage for a bloody fight for the north, where fighting is now focused.

Analysts see no clear winner on the horizon, and fear the conflict could grind on for years.

Reuters>