Sri Lanka rebels ambush army bus -military

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Tamil Tiger rebels ambushed an army bus
in Sri Lanka’s northern Jaffna peninsula on Wednesday, killing
2 servicemen and injuring 12, the military said, the latest in
a series of attacks kindling war fears.

The attack comes after the suspected Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam rebels killed three people and wounded 23 on Monday
and Tuesday in two similar attacks in the island’s north and
east.

“An army bus was hit by a Claymore mine on the Jaffna
peninsula,” said military spokesman Brigadier Prasad
Samarasinghe. A military official in Jaffna said one officer
and one soldier were killed by the blast.

The attacks are the latest in a surge of violence that has
killed more than 700 people this year and which many fear could
rupture a 2002 ceasefire and rekindle a two-decade civil war.

Many Tamil Jaffna residents resent what they see as an army
occupation by the majority Sinhalese south, which has fenced
off large swathes of agricultural land as high-security zones
– preventing thousands of displaced people returning home.

But while hundreds of thousands fled the peninsula to avoid
fighting in the 1990s, many people say they are sick and tired
of being displaced by a protracted conflict that has killed
more than 65,000 people since 1983 and refuse to move again,
even if it costs them their lives.