Tigers raid camps of renegade rebels
20 killed in fighting
Reuters, Colombo
Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels said they raided camps belonging to renegade ex-rebels the Karuna group in army territory yesterday, killing 20 as war fears remain high after a suicide bombing and military air strikes. The rebels say the government uses fighters led by former Tiger eastern commander Karuna Amman as "army-backed paramilitaries" to attack the mainstream Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) -- a charge the government denies. "It is a very severe blow for the paramilitary groups and for the Sri Lankan army," head of the Tiger peace secretariat S. Puleedevan told Reuters by satellite phone from rebel territory. "We have burned the camps and a lot of arms and ammunition provided by the Sri Lankan army," he added. He said the rebels had come under artillery fire from nearby army camps during the attack, but were withdrawing back behind their own lines with only one Tiger fighter wounded. Twenty Karuna fighters were killed and 15 wounded, he said. None of the information could be independently confirmed. The army denied there had been any shelling, and said all they knew was there had been fighting between Tiger and Karuna forces in jungle areas not really controlled by either side. They have always denied knowing where the Karuna camps were, but Nordic truce monitors said the army, at best, turns a blind eye. The past three weeks have been the bloodiest since a 2002 ceasefire with more than 120 people -- possibly many more -- killed in suspected Tiger attacks on the military, ethnic riots, government air strikes and unsolved murders of civilians on both sides.Peace talks due to take place in Switzerland have been indefinitely postponed because of wrangling over the transport of eastern rebel leaders to their headquarters for a pre-talks meeting. Analysts said that ultimately the key issue for the Tigers, whose two-decade fight for an ethnic Tamil homeland has killed more than 64,000 on both sides, was stopping Karuna. The attacks took place near the eastern town of Welikanda, where the Tigers say Karuna fighters kidnapped several aid workers from the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), effectively the aid arm of the de facto Tiger state. Puleedevan said the rebels had found two seized TRO vehicles inside the three Karuna camps raided, but no sign of the seven aid staff still missing.
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