COLOMBO, 20 September 2006 — Sri Lankan jets bombed suspected Tamil Tiger targets in the island’s east yesterday, officials said, while rebel mortars killed four soldiers escorting journalists in the embattled Jaffna peninsula.

Israeli-made Kfir war planes bombed positions of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the district of Batticaloa, the government’s defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said.

“We have taken identified LTTE targets in Batticaloa today,” Rambukwella said without giving information on any casualties.

Hours later, Tiger rebels fired mortar bombs at the army’s de facto front line in the northern peninsula of Jaffna as the military brought a group of 25 reporters and photographers to showcase gains of the security forces.

AFP photographer Lakruwan Wanniarachchi was in a convoy of four armored personnel carriers that were hit by shrapnel from mortar bombs.

Military officials in Jaffna, 400 km north of here, said four soldiers were killed and at least eight others were wounded.

The tour was aborted and the journalists were taken back to the main Palaly airbase further north of the front line.

The attacks came a day after both sides accused each other of the massacre of 11 Muslim men in the neighboring district of Ampara on Monday, which led to protests yesterday by locals blaming government forces.

Rambukwella said authorities were sending investigators to Ampara where the men were found hacked to death Monday.

“We want to get to the bottom of this,” Rambukwella said. “The circumstantial evidence suggests it is the LTTE, but if anyone of us is involved, we will mete out maximum punishment.” The massacre came a day after the Sri Lankan navy and the air force bombed an unnamed vessel said to be transporting weapons and ammunition for the Tiger guerrillas off the coast of Ampara.

The arms vessel was detected following a tip-off from a neighboring country, Rambukwella said, without elaborating.

“We know that the ship originated from a port in Indonesia and there could be at least two other similar ships,” Rambukwella said. “We are on the look-out and obviously we had good information from a friendly country.”

Rambukwella said the LTTE was probably trying to smuggle in artillery and anti-aircraft missiles after suffering a string of setbacks in recent clashes with the military in the north and east. The rebels are known to source their arms and ammunition from Southeast Asia and countries of the former Soviet Union, and to operate a fleet of cargo ships managed by front organizations.

In November 2003, three suspected Tiger rebels were jailed in Thailand for trying to use the country for gun-running to Sri Lanka.