Security alert in Lanka after cop killings
Tigers utter 2-week deadline
AFP, Colombo
Government forces stepped up security in Sri Lanka's restive east yesterday, a day after suspected Tiger rebels killed three soldiers and issued a two-week deadline for the government to increase their levels of protection. The defence ministry said security forces had stepped up their alert in the troubled eastern province while police began investigating Thursday's slaying of two military intelligence officers and their driver. "We have increased the level of security in the east," a ministry spokesman said without giving details on the measures taken after the killing and the Tiger ultimatum. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said it had told peace broker Norway and ceasefire monitors that Colombo must increase protection given to their cadres or risk a collapse of the truce in place since February 2002. Tiger political wing leader S. P. Thamilselvan had raised the issue of the safety of cadres moving through government-held territory after a mine attack wounded a woman fighter on Sunday, the LTTE's peace secretariat said in a statement. "Insisting that a response is being called for from the government within two weeks for the LTTE to review its transport arrangements, Mr.Thamilselvan said the government has to unequivocally express its commitment to the ceasefire," Thursday's statement said. "...in the absence of which, the LTTE would resort to its own pre-ceasefire arrangement that would entail confrontations putting the ceasefire at serious risk." There was no immediate reaction from the government to the rebel statement, but the government said it condemned Thursday's killing of the three soldiers. "At a time when efforts are being made by the government to establish cooperative structures with the LTTE, such open violations of the ceasefire are especially deplorable," the Colombo government said in a brief statement. A Norwegian-brokered truce has been in force since February 2002 after 30 years of ethnic conflict in which more than 60,000 people were killed. Tension has been rising in eastern Sri Lanka since a split in the Tigers in March last year. The government has accused the LTTE of killing hundreds of rivals and intelligence operatives despite the truce. The guerrillas for their part have accused the government of supporting their rivals.
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