Unidentified group attacks Tamil Tiger rebel office in eastern Sri Lanka

Associated Press, Tue May 3, 2005 01:48 EDT . COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - Unidentified men fired automatic rifles and lobbed grenades at a Tamil Tiger rebel office in Sri Lanka's volatile east, but the building was apparently empty during the attack, police said on Tuesday.

Separately, attackers fatally shot and killed a village council member in the country's northwest, police said. Authorities blamed the attack on the Tamil Tigers' political office late Monday on a feud between the mainstream rebel group and a faction that broke away last year. ``We suspect the attack was connected to the internecine fighting between the two groups,'' said K.G. Dharmawardene, chief officer in the area.

He said police recovered two T-56 assault rifles at the scene of the attack in Valachchenai village, just north of the eastern town of Batticaloa. Both rebel factions use the rifles. The attack came hours after the funeral in Batticaloa of prominent Tamil journalist Dharmeratnam Sivaram, a board member of a prominent pro-Tiger Web site. He was abducted last week in the capital, Colombo, and shot dead. Police have made no arrests but suspect that the killing of Sivaram, whose articles had favored the mainstream Tiger group, was linked to the feud between the two factions. On Tuesday, three men shot and killed village council member H.M. Wasantha of the opposition United National Party in Ratnapura, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of the capital, Colombo, said area police officer T. Solangaarachchi.

Three men shot Wasantha and then fled in a van, Solangaarachchi said. Further details were not immediately available. It was unlikely that his slaying had any link with the rebels or their factional feud, Solangaarachchi said. Also on Tuesday, police found the body of an unidentified youth bound and gagged near a roadside in Eravur village near Batticaloa, said military spokesman Daya Ratnayake. Investigations had begun, he said.Violence has plagued eastern Sri Lanka since the Tigers' ranks split in March 2004. Scores of people have been killed, and the situation threatens a fragile cease-fire between the rebels and Sri Lanka's government.

The Tigers launched a war in 1983 to carve out an independent homeland for the island's minority ethnic Tamils, who claim discrimination by the majority Sinhalese. Nearly 65,000 people were killed before the truce. Subsequent peace talks broke down two years ago.