The Sri Lankan navy sank a suspected Tamil Tiger rebel ship early yesterday and truce monitors said all 12 on board were feared dead, in what could be a major setback to the island's fragile peace process.
Navy officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a ship belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) did not respond to its radio calls or to warning shots and tried to ram a navy vessel off the northeastern port city of Trincomalee.
The navy vessel sank the rebel ship, they said.
"It seems there were 12 Sea Tigers on board. They jumped overboard but as to whether they were rescued, we don't know," said Agnes Bragadottir, a spokesman for the Nordic monitors who oversee a Norwegian-brokered truce between the rebels and the government.
"I think they are all dead."
Bragadottir added there was an explosion on board and it was thought the ship had sunk.
The violence is a new blow to the bid to end 20 years of war between the Tigers and the government. The two sides agreed to a ceasefire in February last year, but the Tigers, who have been fighting for self-determination for minority Tamils, suspended peace talks in April.
They also boycotted a donor conference in Tokyo which raised US$4.5 billion to rebuild the war-torn island and on Wednesday rejected the latest government proposal aimed at restarting talks.
Despite the stalled talks, the truce has been holding, giving the island what is seen as the best chance yet to end the war that killed 64,000 in the past 20 years. Four previous peace bids ended in renewed fighting.
There was no immediate comment from the Tigers about yesterday's clash.
In a similar incident in March, 11 people were killed when the navy sank an LTTE ship it said was smuggling weapons, a charge the rebels denied.
Also yesterday, a leading Tamil politician from a party opposed to the Tigers was shot dead in the northern Jaffna peninsula.
Kandiah Subathiran, the number two in the Jaffna wing of the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front, was assassinated in his office, sources in Jaffna and local media reported.
It was the latest in a series of assassinations of Tamil political leaders which critics have blamed on the Tigers.
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