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Suspected Tamil Tigers kill 10

Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels fatally shot 10 ethnic Sinhalese civilians in southern Sri Lanka, the defense ministry said yesterday, amid escalating violence following the government's withdrawal from a ceasefire with the insurgents.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara blamed Tamil Tiger rebels for the massacre on Thursday night in the village of Thanamalwila, about 260km southeast of Colombo.

Spokesmen for the rebels could not immediately be reached for comment. But the group, listed as a terror organization by the US and the EU, routinely denies responsibility for such attacks.

Violence has intensified in this Indian Ocean island nation since the government announced two weeks ago that it would scrap the six-year ceasefire between the government and rebels -- a pact that had largely been ignored in recent years. The truce officially ended on Wednesday.

Nanayakkara said a group of rebels opened fire at civilians in Thanamalwila around 10pm on Thursday, killing three and wounding another three.

Insurgents then fled into nearby bushes, he said.

Police and army troops were sent to the village where they found seven more bullet-riddled bodies yesterday morning and launched a search for the rebels, Nanayakkara said.

Also in the same region on Wednesday, suspected Tamil rebels bombed a civilian bus, gunned down the fleeing passengers and attacked farmers as they retreated into the bush, killing 32 people.

If the Tamil Tigers are responsible for these latest attacks, it highlights their increasing determination to hit targets in the mostly peaceful, ethnic Sinhalese-majority south, while the military presses ahead with its ongoing offensive against rebel-held territory in the north.

The Tamil Tigers have been fighting since 1983 for an independent state for Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil minority in the north and east after decades of being marginalized by Sinhalese-dominated governments. The fighting has killed more than 70,000 people.

Though scrapping the 2002 truce has little direct impact on the raging war, the government's decision to end the deal was criticized by peace mediators and foreign governments, who worried it would make it even more difficult to end the decades-old conflict.

More than 300 people have been killed in the north in the past two weeks, according to military figures.

In the latest violence, soldiers shot and killed a Tamil guerrilla early yesterday after he attempted to detonate a roadside bomb targeting patrolling troops near the town of Batticaloa in the east, Nanayakkara said.

On Thursday, air force jets bombed and destroyed a hide-out occupied by senior Tamil Tiger rebel leaders in the north while scattered battles throughout the north killed 13 rebels, he said.

The pro-rebel TamilNet Web site claimed a civilian area was targeted by the air force and that seven people were wounded. Nanayakkara denied that.

Rebel officials could not be reached for comment on the clashes.

Each side often gives different accounts of the fighting, exaggerating enemy casualties while underreporting its own. Independent confirmation is unavailable since the battle zone is restricted.
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