Category: Politics

May 18, 2006 (AFP) – Heavy mortar bomb attacks were reported from Sri Lanka’s restive north-eastern port district of Trincomalee Thursday, residents and police said.Security forces were firing at suspected Tamil rebel positions from which they came under attack overnight, police said as residents said they heard several mortar bomb explosions within a half-hour period. […]

TOKYO, May 18, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera called Thursday on donor countries to raise pressure on the Tamil Tigers to resume talks and to curb the rebels’ fund-raising overseas.Samaraweera was in Tokyo ahead of a May 30 meeting here of Sri Lanka’s key financial backers, which comes as killings mount […]

May 17, 2006 (AFP) – The United States is leading international efforts to halt Sri Lanka’s slide back to war, diplomats and officials said Wednesday as four more people died in fresh violence.A US State Department official left here Tuesday, urging the government and Tamil Tiger rebels to resume talks suspended in April 2003 and […]

May 16, 2006 (AFP) – The United States has asked the European Union to follow its lead and ban Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers as a terrorist group, a visiting US State Department official said Tuesday.“We have encouraged the EU to list the LTTE” as a terrorist group, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and […]

May 16, 2006 (AFP) – A policeman was killed and two others wounded Tuesday in two claymore mine explosions in Sri Lanka’s restive north-eastern district of Trincomalee, the military said.The blasts were aimed at officers who were clearing the main road of mines at Thampalakamam, a military official told AFP. The injured constables were rushed […]

May 16, 2006 (AFP) – At least six children were killed in the latest surge of violence in Sri Lanka’s northeast and thousands were made homeless, the United Nations children’s fund UNICEF said Tuesday.“The ongoing violence underlines the urgency for the parties to the conflict to take immediate action to avoid slipping back into a […]

May 15, 2006 (AFP) – The Sri Lankan government traded charges with Tiger rebels on Monday over the killing of 13 Tamil civilians at the weekend, amid escalating violence in the restive northern region.Another bomb went off in the northern peninsula of Jaffna on Monday but there were no casualties, military officials said. Security had […]

COLOMBO, May 14, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers dismissed calls by Scandinavian truce monitors to stop rebel navy missions and have threatened “war” to keep their men at sea, officials said Sunday.The LTTE’s naval wing chief, Colonel Soosai, said on the pro-rebel Tamilnet website said that the LTTE were “not prepared to relinquish […]

May 14, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka Police asked for help from the public Sunday to identify a woman suicide bomber who attacked the island’s army chief killing 10 people. The police Criminal Investigations Department said in a statement that the bomber had yet to be identified contrary to earlier claims that she was a […]

May 14, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse has warned Tiger rebels not to take his patience for weakness and vowed to defend his country against attacks.Rajapakse, 60, said in an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper he was committed peacefully to settling the Tamil separatist conflict and had ordered recent air attacks […]