Tamil Tiger attack kills 13 sailors

Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels ambushed and killed 13 Sri Lankan sailors in an attack on a naval bus in northern Sri Lanka yesterday in the worst breach of a 2002 ceasefire so far.

Military spokesmen said the rebels used a combination of claymore fragmentation mines - blocks of plastic explosive that blast a hail of ball bearings towards targets - as well as rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) and assault rifles to hit a convoy in the northern district of Mannar.

"They laid a deliberate ambush - it was very well carried out," said an army spokesman. "They fixed four claymores. All of them were blasted."

"They fired five RPG rounds and then small arms. When we got to the scene we found 12 dead bodies and three wounded, but one of them died."

Fifteen sailors in a truck travelling with the bus were unhurt, the army said. The rebels were unavailable to comment, but the army said no one else had the capacity to mount such an attack.

It took place near the Mannar Sea between Sri Lanka and southern India, the scene of a naval clash on Thursday that the Tigers say killed three sailors in the most serious incident at sea since the truce halted the war with over 64,000 dead.

Incidents between the military and rebels have been rising since November when the Tigers threatened a return to war during 2006 if they did not get concessions from the government. Two claymore mine attacks earlier in the month killed 14 soldiers. The rebels want a homeland for the minority Tamil population - something new President Mahinda Rajapake, allied to hardline Marxists and Buddhists who hate the rebels, says he opposes.

Nordic truce monitors said they did not yet have details of the latest incident but that it was an extremely worrying development at a time when the two sides are unable to agree on a venue for peace talks, let alone a lasting solution.

"The question is how much the security forces can take and the ceasefire can hold," Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) chief Hagrup Haukland told reporters. "There are powers and elements that do not want peace within this country."