Avail last chance to avert war

The Tigers, who used suicide bombers to devastating effect in their drive for autonomy and have threatened to resume their struggle next year unless given political powers in the north and east, said their deadline depends on new President Mahinda Rajapakse's response.

"We don't prefer war. If a war is thrusted on the Tamil people, the Tamil people and the LTTE (will) make use of all the resources available to fight back," S.P. Thamilselvan, head of the Tigers' political wing, told Reuters in the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi in an interview late on Friday.

"We consider this is an important final opportunity," he added, saying the Tigers would give Colombo a "short space" to come up with a peace blueprint that accepts their demands for a homeland for ethnic Tamils and self-determination.

"Whether the short space is going to be first half, mid or the latter half (of 2006) is in the hands of Colombo."

Rajapakse, allied to hardline Marxists and Buddhists who detest the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), has already ruled out a separate homeland for Tamils outright.

A surge in attacks against the military, which culminated in two claymore mine blasts this month that killed 14 soldiers in the northern Jaffna peninsula, have raised fears of a return to a war that killed over 64,000 people up until a 2002 truce.

The Tigers, accused of assassinating the island's foreign minister in August, deny any hand in attacks on military patrols and sentries -- which analysts say is a stock denial -- and the ceasefire is at its lowest ebb.

Some tsunami aid workers are considering pulling out of coastal rebel territory and Colombo's stock exchange has plunged amid fears a return to war will torpedo any hope of an influx of much-needed foreign investment into the $20 billion economy.