Lanka hits back by air, land and sea

Sri Lankan woman S. P. Padma Kumari (C) weeps as she reaches the police morgue yesterday to take away the body of her husband Sri Lankan soldier J. A. S. K. Jayalath, who was killed in a suicide attack targeting the convoy of Army Chief Sarath Fonseka on Tuesday in Colombo. Sri Lanka was facing fears of a return to civil war after government forces responded to a Tamil Tiger suicide bombing in the capital with air and naval strikes. PHOTO: AFP

Three people died and 13 were wounded when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fired mortar bombs against a naval detachment in the Muttur area of Trincomalee district, defence ministry spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said.

He denied earlier military reports which said the civilians were killed when an Israeli-built Kfir jet accidentally dropped a bomb on Muttur jetty while attacking suspected Tamil Tiger positions in the northeast.

The pro-rebel Tamilnet website reported 12 other civilians died when government warplanes struck the rebel-held Sampur area late Tuesday in retaliation for a suicide bombing that killed 10 and wounded 30, including the army chief.

"Groups of people searching for casualties in Tuesday's attacks said at least 12 bodies of Tamil civilians were recovered so far," it said. "The death toll is expected to increase."

A large number of injured were seeking treatment in Sampur hospital.

It was not immediately clear if the military air strikes caused other damage, but Tamilnet said 15,000 villagers were fleeing their homes Wednesday as strikes continued.

The military launched the bombardments after a woman pretending to be pregnant blew herself up at army headquarters in the capital.

Sri Lanka vowed to keep attacking Tamil rebel targets with coordinated air, sea and land forces including artillery duels in the restive northeast Wednesday amid fears of full-scale war.

"If the LTTE continues attacking, there will be coordinated retaliation in the form of defence," Plan Implementation Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said. "This will continue as long as the LTTE targets the security forces."

However, the government said it was still committed to a negotiated settlement to Sri Lanka's long-running Tamil separatist conflict which has claimed over 60,000 lives in the past three decades including many during a ceasefire in place since 2002. "The ceasefire agreement is still on," Media Minister Anura Yapa said. "We are trying our best through the Norwegian facilitator, the truce monitors and the (international) donors to bring the LTTE to the negotiating table."

But on the ground, violence escalated.

Israeli-built Kfir jets and Ukranian MiG-27 aircraft carried out air attacks while naval gun boats and army artillery units also exchanged fire.

Washington led international condemnation of the spectacular bomb attack blamed on a "Black Tiger" female suicide bomber.

"It's regrettable that the Tamil Tigers have decided to restart the war instead of restarting the peace process," US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher said.

"We are in touch with governments around the world to bring to bear whatever pressure we can on the Tamil Tigers to abandon this course of action."

LTTE Trincomalee district leader S. Elilan late Tuesday asked the Swedish-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission to "clarify" whether the military had launched a "full-scale war violating the ceasefire agreement".

At least 80 people have died in bombings in the past two weeks while Tamil rebels say 70 civilians have been killed by pro-government militia or security forces, a charge denied by the military.