Lanka seeks new truce with Tigers

Defence ministry spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said the ceasefire arranged and put in place by Norway from February 2002 had been violated more than 10,000 times and was virtually dead.

"There is no point in beating round the bush," Rambukwella told reporters when asked if the government accepted that the truce agreement was still on place. "The government is ready to re-look at it."

"It has been violated over 10,000 times by the Tigers. Yes, the ceasefire is there to make the international community happy, but you know the reality," said Rambukwella who is also the minister of foreign employment.

He said the government reserved the right to take any action to safeguard its "national interests" despite any provision of the truce limiting military action against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Both the government and the Tamil Tigers have carried out air attacks against each other despite the ceasefire expressly prohibiting aerial strikes.

Rambukwella said the military would step up its aerial surveillance of rebel-held territory using spy planes following the Tigers' demonstration of their air capability in March with the bombing of several military targets.

He said the military was also upgrading its capabilities to shoot down Tiger light aircraft which have carried out four sorties over the capital and a military complex in the north of the island and escaped unchallenged.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan war planes Monday bombed suspected Tamil Tiger positions in the island's north where heavy ground battles were raging, a military spokesman said.

Supersonic jets hit positions near Iranamadu where the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) maintain a clandestine airfield, spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said.

He said a Tiger military training facility was targeted by the air force, but had no details of casualties. "The training base had caught fire and was burning for several hours," he said.

In ground battles at Vavuniya, gateway to the rebel-held Wanni region, the military lost seven soldiers killed and 31 wounded in the past three days, Samarasinghe said, adding that the Tigers too had suffered heavy casualties.

He said the number of police commandos killed in a bomb attack in the east of the island Sunday had risen to four.

For their part, the Tigers said they had beaten back a military attempt to advance into the rebel-held part of Vavuniya and had killed at least five government troopers for the loss of three of their own combatants.