S.Lanka police say Tiger ambush kills two officers

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels ambushed a
police truck with a claymore fragmentation mine on Wednesday,
police said, killing two officers and wounding two amid a surge
of violence ahead of planned peace talks.

More than 20 people have died since Friday and diplomats
fear violence may be spiraling out of control, that peace talks
scheduled to take place next week in Geneva may not happen and
that the island’s two-decade civil war may restart.

“It was a claymore attack,” Senior Superintendent Nihal
Samarakoon told Reuters from the northeastern port of
Trincomalee, close to the scene of the attack. “Two were killed
and two were injured. It was the LTTE.”

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are also
suspected of being behind two other lethal claymore ambushes in
Sri Lanka’s north and east since Monday, including one on a
navy bus near Trincomalee that killed 11 sailors and wounded
two passing British nationals.

The head of the Nordic-staffed international mission
monitoring the increasingly strained 2002 truce was due to meet
the rebels on Wednesday to discuss the recent attacks. Few
analysts believe their denials of responsibility.

The rebels have yet to say if they will attend talks in
Geneva from April 19 to 21, saying they want a government
safe-conduct for a Sea Tiger vessel to take their commanders
from eastern rebel areas to the de facto Tiger capital for
talks.

The Tigers’ fight for a separate Tamil homeland in Sri
Lanka’s north and east has already killed more than 64,000 on
both sides. On Monday Canada joined Britain, the United States
and India in listing the group as terrorists alongside Al
Qaeda.