COLOMBO (Reuters) - Tamil Tiger rebels said Sri Lankan government fighter jets killed eight civilians, including three young children, in an air raid on their northern stronghold on Friday.
Fighting between the military and the Liberation Tigers ofTamil Eelam has intensified since the government formallypulled out of a six-year-old ceasefire pact in January, thougha renewed war has been raging since 2006.
The Air Force said it had bombed and destroyed an isolatedrebel boat yard housing vessels used in suicide missions in thevillage of Kiranchi, west of the Tigers' de facto capital ofKilinochchi, on Friday morning. It declined to comment on theTiger assertion.
"Eight civilians, including three preschool children, werekilled and 10 more were injured, four of them critically, whenSri Lanka bombed a coastal civilian settlement in the Kiranchiarea," the Tigers' Peace Secretariat said in an email.
The Tigers were not immediately contactable by telephone.
As with a Defence Ministry claim that troops killed 92rebels in a northern offensive earlier this week and tolls fromcountless clashes in recent months, there was no independentconfirmation of what happened or how many people were killed.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government argues the Tigersused the truce to re-arm and were not sincere about talkingpeace. It has vowed to crush them militarily, and has capturedlarge swathes of rebel-held territory in the east.
But analysts say neither side is winning, with the Tigersregularly hitting back with suicide attacks and roadside bombs.
The violence hurt tourist arrivals last year, which fell 12percent from a year earlier, while the stock market slid nearly7 percent in 2007, with some businesses shelving investmentplans.
The latest fighting came as U.N. AssistantSecretary-General for Political Affairs Angela Kane visited theIndian Ocean island nation to assess world the body'soperations for Secretary General Ban ki-Moon.
It also came a day after U.S.-based Human Rights Watchcalled on the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on theTigers and a splinter faction seen as allied to the governmentfor using children as soldiers.
Human Rights Watch also called on the Security Council topublicly condemn the Sri Lankan government, saying it wasfailing to investigate cases of child abduction and recruitmentin territory it controls.
It also wants the government reprimanded, accusing elementsof the security forces of complicity in abduction of childrenby the splinter 'Karuna' faction, which analysts say helped thegovernment to evict the Tigers from the east.
(Writing by Simon Gardner; Editing by Alex Richardson)
