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Tamil rebels attack 3 army camps in Sri Lanka 's east; bombs kill 3 in north
Associated Press,
Mon January 1, 2007 09:00 EST .
BHARATHA MALLAWARACHI
Associated Press Writer
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) _ Suspected Tamil rebels detonated two roadside bombs in northern Sri Lanka on Monday killing three security personnel, while three military camps in the east came under rebel mortar fire, the Defense Ministry said.
Separately, three Tamil men in their mid-20s were dragged out of their homes in the small eastern town of Valaichchenai and fatally shot, said the area's police chief, M. Vijayanayake.
He declined to speculate who was behind Sunday's slayings or the motive saying an investigation was ongoing. ``We can't say who has done this,'' he said, adding that Tamil Tiger rebels and their main rivals, a splinter faction known as Karuna, are both active in the region.
On Monday, a bomb targeted a military foot patrol in Point Pedro, a small port town on the northern tip of the Tamil-dominated Jaffna peninsula, military spokesman, Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said. One soldier was killed and two others wounded, he said.
Hours later, suspected rebels detonated a bomb in the northern district of Vavuniya as a police jeep drove by, killing two policemen and wounding another, Samarasinghe said.
``The jeep was carrying food for their colleagues when it got caught in the blast triggered by the terrorists,'' Samarasinghe said.
There was no immediate comment from the rebels, as phone calls remained unanswered.
Earlier on Monday, Tamil rebels fired as many as 20 mortar rounds at three military camps in eastern Batticaloa district, Samarasinghe said.
``We had taken defensive and protective measures and we suffered no casualties,'' he said, adding some of the mortars fell outside the camps, which were well fortified with bunkers.
Samarasinghe said the military retaliated with artillery fire, but he had no information about rebel casualties.
Batticaloa has become a hotbed of violence between the military and separatist rebels, who are fighting for an independent homeland in the north and east for the country's 3.1 million ethnic Tamils, who have suffered decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese.
Sri Lanka's civil war eased in 2002 when Norway brokered a cease-fire, but the truce has recently come under serious threat with near-daily violence. At least 3,689 combatants and civilians were killed in fighting last year, according to the Defense Ministry's latest figure.
Before the cease-fire, the conflict claimed the lives of about 65,000 people and displaced another 1.6 million.
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