Sri Lanka's military launched air and artillery strikes on Tamil Tiger targets in the island's northeast today, with thousands fleeing their homes a day after a suicide attack damaged an already fragile ceasefire.
Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said the latest strikes came after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fired at the military near the northeastern port of Trincomalee.
The rebels said they would retaliate if the government continued the attacks, launched after a suspected Tiger suicide blast in the capital killed 10 and wounded the army commander.
The strikes were the first official military action since a 2002 ceasefire halted the two-decades-old civil war and raised hopes of a lasting peace.
They followed a string of suspected Tiger attacks on the military and ethnic riots against Tamils. The army said it had closed borders with rebel territory.
Some aid workers helping rebuild after the 2004 tsunami said they were evacuating from the north and east.
Swedish Major-General Ulf Henricsson, who heads the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission that oversees the truce, said if air strikes continued, peace talks would become difficult.
The worst-case scenario was a return to war, he said.
"I think the parties are not prepared for that," he said. "And if they were, it would be devastating for the people of Sri Lanka and for their own military capabilities."
More than 100 people had already died in the bloodiest two weeks since the
truce, even before a female suicide bomber, disguised to look pregnant, blew herself up at Colombo's high-security army headquarters.