Two Sri Lanka police killed escorting aid workers
By Rob Taylor
COLOMBO, March 26 (Reuters) - Two Sri Lankan police were killed on Wednesday while escorting Japanese aid workers in the country's east, as air force helicopters and fighters bombed Tamil Tiger rebel bases in the conflict-torn north.
The two police were killed and seven others, including three civilians, were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded at the rear of a Japanese aid convoy visiting an agricultural irrigation project in Vavunathivu, northeast of Colombo.
"There were some Japanese officials. Police were escorting them," police Deputy Inspector General N.K. Ilangakoon told Reuters, saying the convoy had been hit by a fragmentation mine.
The Japanese were not injured in the blast, which occurred after the main convoy had already passed, Ilangakoon said.
Tiger rebels, who are fighting for an independent homeland in Sri Lanka's north and east, frequently target police and the military with claymore fragmentation mines.
But eastern districts have been under government control and the rebels supposedly forced out since 2007.
Local elections were held in the east earlier this month as a first step towards wider council elections in May that will underpin the government's dual strategy of crushing the rebels militarily and through the ballot box.
Sri Lanka's conflict has intensified since 2006, when the military launched fresh offensives as a truce agreement broke down. The six-year truce was formally scrapped in January, opening a new phase of a war that has killed more than 70,000 people since 1983.
A Japanese embassy spokesman said the aid workers were consultants for a private company, which he did not name.
"At the time of the explosion they were there, but there were no injuries to them," the spokesman said.
Helicopter gunships, meanwhile, attacked rebel bases in the northern Mannar district in support of a ground offensive by soldiers, who have been engaged in bitter fighting in the area since last week, the military said.
Air force jets also bombed a Tiger boatyard in the northeast, where a navy attack ship was sunk last week by what rebels said was a suicide squad. The navy said the ship was sunk by a Tiger sea mine, with 10 crew still missing and feared dead.
The military said the yard, where the Tigers build and repair fast boats to target the navy and land weapons, was destroyed in the bombing raid, although there was no information on whether any Tiger fighters had been killed. A spokesman for The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was not immediately available for comment on the latest clashes in a 25-year civil war the military has vowed to end by December.
Analysts say both sides regularly inflate casualty numbers to maintain public support and demoralise opposition fighters. (Additional reporting by Ranga Sirilal; Editing by Alex Richardson)
COLOMBO, March 26 (Reuters) - Two Sri Lankan police were killed on Wednesday while escorting Japanese aid workers in the country's east, as air force helicopters and fighters bombed Tamil Tiger rebel bases in the conflict-torn north.
The two police were killed and seven others, including three civilians, were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded at the rear of a Japanese aid convoy visiting an agricultural irrigation project in Vavunathivu, northeast of Colombo.
"There were some Japanese officials. Police were escorting them," police Deputy Inspector General N.K. Ilangakoon told Reuters, saying the convoy had been hit by a fragmentation mine.
The Japanese were not injured in the blast, which occurred after the main convoy had already passed, Ilangakoon said.
Tiger rebels, who are fighting for an independent homeland in Sri Lanka's north and east, frequently target police and the military with claymore fragmentation mines.
But eastern districts have been under government control and the rebels supposedly forced out since 2007.
Local elections were held in the east earlier this month as a first step towards wider council elections in May that will underpin the government's dual strategy of crushing the rebels militarily and through the ballot box.
Sri Lanka's conflict has intensified since 2006, when the military launched fresh offensives as a truce agreement broke down. The six-year truce was formally scrapped in January, opening a new phase of a war that has killed more than 70,000 people since 1983.
A Japanese embassy spokesman said the aid workers were consultants for a private company, which he did not name.
"At the time of the explosion they were there, but there were no injuries to them," the spokesman said.
Helicopter gunships, meanwhile, attacked rebel bases in the northern Mannar district in support of a ground offensive by soldiers, who have been engaged in bitter fighting in the area since last week, the military said.
Air force jets also bombed a Tiger boatyard in the northeast, where a navy attack ship was sunk last week by what rebels said was a suicide squad. The navy said the ship was sunk by a Tiger sea mine, with 10 crew still missing and feared dead.
The military said the yard, where the Tigers build and repair fast boats to target the navy and land weapons, was destroyed in the bombing raid, although there was no information on whether any Tiger fighters had been killed. A spokesman for The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was not immediately available for comment on the latest clashes in a 25-year civil war the military has vowed to end by December.
Analysts say both sides regularly inflate casualty numbers to maintain public support and demoralise opposition fighters. (Additional reporting by Ranga Sirilal; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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