Fragile peace in Sri Lanka is again endangered as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) terrorists or Tamil Tigers ambushed and killed 13 Sri Lankan sailors in an attack on a naval convoy in northern Sri Lanka on Friday (Dec. 23) in the worst breach of a 2002 ceasefire so far.



It took place near the Mannar Sea between Sri Lanka and India, the scene of a naval clash a day earlier in which the LTTE terrorists killed three sailors in the first attack at sea since the truce.



Clashes between the military and rebels have been rising since the Tigers threatened a return to war during 2006 if they did not get concessions from the government. 14 soldiers were killed earlier in the month in two terrorists’ attacks.



At least 64,000 people have been killed in Sri Lanka’s two-decade old civil war.



Truce monitors from Norway said they did not yet have details of the latest incident but that it was an extremely worrying development at a time when the two sides are unable to agree on a venue for peace talks, let alone discuss rebel demands for a Tamil homeland.



The rebels threatened in November to resume their armed struggle in the new year unless the government agreed to grant them wide political powers in the north and east, where they run a de facto state covering a seventh of the island.



Norway, Japan, the European Union and the United States — co-chairs of a Sri Lankan donors conference — called on the Tigers this week to end what they called a campaign of violence immediately or face unspecified serious consequences.



Earlier this week, a coalition of foreign donors monitoring progress toward peace rebuked the rebels for the boycott. A statement issued by the United States, the European Union, Japan and Norway - the leaders of the donors conference - called on the Tigers “to put an immediate end to their ongoing campaign of violence” and dangled the threat of unspecified serious consequences should it continue.



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