External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's one-day visit was primarily to invite Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to a regional summit that India will host in April, but also included talks on resolving the more than two-decade civil conflict in the country, just off the southern tip of India.

Mukherjee met with Rajapakse, along with Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera and other leaders on Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

``The Sri Lankan leaders shared with the Indian minister the measures taken to ensure security while pursuing the peace process,'' the statement said.

``President Rajapakse reiterated his steadfast commitment to a negotiated political solution to the national issue,'' it said.

India had in the past taken a keen interest in solving the bloody conflict between Sri Lanka's government and Tamil Tigers who want to carve out a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils in the northeast.

India is home to some 56 million Tamils with family and cultural ties to those in Sri Lanka.

India, however, distanced itself from the conflict after the 1991 assassination of its former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a Tiger suicide bomber, apparently in revenge for New Delhi's decision to send a peacekeeping force to its tiny neighbor in 1987.

Despite its reluctance to play a direct mediating role, New Delhi has continued to push for a negotiated and peaceful settlement to the conflict.

A 2002 Norway-brokered cease-fire brought a few years of relative peace to the tropical island, but since late 2005, violence in Sri Lanka has escalated, with over 3,600 people killed last year alone.

India is hosting a summit of the regional South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or SAARC, in April. The grouping was formed in 1985 to promote regional trade and economic cooperation.

It comprises Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Last year, it admitted Afghanistan as the eighth member. Discuss this story Published: Tue Jan 9 12:30:11 EST 2007

COLOMBO, Jan. 9 (Kyodo) Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse cautioned the media Tuesday to guard against inflaming emotions as the Tamil Tiger rebels turned on targets in the majority Sinhala-dominated south of the country and military pressure increased on the Tigers mainly in the east.

Two bus bombs targeting civilians last week claimed 18 lives and Monday a small electrical substation was blown up in a suburb of Colombo, an incident where the hand of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam hand is suspected.

''Nobody will believe the LTTE claim that they had nothing to do with the bus bombs,'' an Asian diplomat said on grounds of anonymity. ''Both incidents bore unmistakable fingerprints of the Tigers.''

Rajapakse invited national editors and news directors to his official residence and office in Colombo for a breakfast meeting at which he stressed the government had no intention of interfering with the freedom of the media.

''But be mindful of repercussions of images and headlines that can inflame emotions,'' he said.

While the government has maximized security, the president said more incidents where civilians were at risk were possible.

The LTTE has claimed several civilian deaths as a result of continuing air force bombing of what the military calls ''identified LTTE targets.''

Defense analysts said the armed forces, who are confident that they are weeks away from clearing the Eastern Province of the LTTE, are hinting the battle may thereafter be carried to the north.

Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe, the military spokesman, said Tuesday the LTTE strategy was to try to ensure diversion of troops from the northern and eastern theatre for preventive duties in the south by engaging targets there.

''It is possible that the Tigers will pay people to place lethal packages in buses,'' the president said. ''Quite innocently, somebody might think he can make a few rupees by storing such a package.''

The state-controlled press reported that the government-owned railway planned ''high-tech frisks'' at railway stations as a precaution against trains being attacked.

Faulting both the Tigers and the government for ''the vicious violence unleashed against civilians,'' the Anglican Bishop of Colombo said the bus bombs were clearly the work of the LTTE, but the government must take responsibility for deaths and injuries caused by aerial bombing in Mannar in the north.

''According to reports, this is a clear shift from the often propounded stance of restrained and retaliatory strikes, and amounts to arbitrary acts of war,'' Bishop Duleep de Chickera said in a statement. Discuss this story Published: Tue Jan 9 03:14:48 EST 2007

Both sides claim to be adhering to a 2002 cease-fire, but violence has escalated since late 2005, with over 3,600 people killed last year.

Lewke said guerrillas had used the Ampara base to launch attacks on government forces and as a training camp for new recruits. He said it also had a hospital.

Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan confirmed a battle in the area but denied that the base had fallen.

``They (the Special Task Force) have been trying to infiltrate our area and there was also a confrontation. But I deny that the camp has been captured,'' he said by telephone from the rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi.

The United Nations, meanwhile, said 15,000 Tamil civilians have been trapped by fighting in rebel-held Vaharai, in the eastern Batticaloa area.

``These persons are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. We must always recall that it is the most weak who remain behind the elderly, the sick and the disabled,'' a U.N. statement quoted Amin Awad, Acting Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, as saying.

The government says about 20,000 civilians have moved into government-held areas to escape violence.

Awad said no food, medicine or other humanitarian supplies had been allowed into Vaharai since Nov. 29.

On the Web: http://www.nationalsecurity.lk Discuss this story Published: Tue Jan 9 03:09:58 EST 2007