SRI LANKA: Fears of a new civil war in Sri Lanka are mounting after a further six people were shot dead yesterday.
It follows the suspected Tamil Tiger killing of six Sinhalese farmers on Sunday.
More than 100 people have died in the bloodiest two weeks since the 2002 truce. Planned talks between the Sinhalese and Tamils in Switzerland have been postponed indefinitely.
The army said it had shot dead two suspected rebels they said were setting up an ambush in Sri Lanka's east.
Three soldiers were shot dead by the Tigers in the northern towns of Vavuniya and Jaffna, they said.
In Trincomalee, the army said one Sinhalese woman had been shot dead in a Tiger attack near rebel territory.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), whose campaign for a Tamil homeland has killed more than 64,000 people on both sides, accuse the almost exclusively Sinhalese army of "ethnic cleansing" in the island's northeast, as well as increasingly frequent murders of Tamil civilians.
Analysts say the Tigers are frustrated by the government failing to take any action promised at talks in February to stop "armed groups" operating in its territory.
That was seen as a reference to renegade ex-rebels led by former LTTE eastern commander Karuna Amman. The army denies supporting him.