Explosion kills six in Sri Lanka

A suspected Tamil Tiger blast killed six people in Sri Lanka's northeast yesterday as a top Indian diplomat visited the island to discuss rising violence that many fear could trigger a new civil war. A top Tamil rebel meanwhile said truce monitors from three EU countries must leave by Sept. 1, extending an earlier deadline by one month.

The army said the blast ripped through a road junction in the northeastern port town of Trincomalee, killing five security personnel and a civilian. They blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who want an ethnic Tamil homeland.

"It was an explosion in a three-wheeler parked by a roadblock," said army spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarsinghe. "The police had tried to search the three wheeler and it was detonated remotely."

Eleven were injured including eight civilians, he said. A mine blast in eastern Sri Lanka earlier in the day wounded two police Special Task Force troopers, the military said.

Officials Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran was visiting the island to meet President Mahinda Rajapakse.

Top their agenda was likely to be this year's surge in violence that has killed more than 700 people.

"There's a certain amount of discussion about India's exact position," a senior Sri Lankan official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "I think India could be much more closely involved in the peace process."

The Indian High Commission refused to comment on the visit.

Meanwhile, a top Tamil Tiger rebel leader told AFP yesterday that truce monitors in Sri Lanka from EU member states Denmark, Finland and Sweden must leave the country by Sept. 1.

Thirty-seven of 57 Scandinavian monitors from the three states cannot be considered neutral, after the EU put the Tigers on its list of banned terrorist groups in May, Tiger political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan said.

"Sept. 1 must be the time frame by which they reconstitute" the monitoring mission, Thamilselvan said in an interview at his political headquarters of Kilinochchi, 330km north of Colombo.

Last month, the LTTE told peace broker Norway to get the EU monitors out within a month.

The Tigers had agreed to extend the one-month deadline because Norway told them that during this month "no concrete action could be taken in Europe because of the holidays ... we realize they need some more time," Thamilselvan said.

Asked would happen if Norway was unable to remove EU monitors and reshape the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) by Sept. 1, Thamilselvan said: "The question of the facilitators unable to meet the deadline does not apply because we have provided them with sufficient time."