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Suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bombers infiltrated the port of Galle in southern Sri Lanka and attacked naval facilities, defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told AFP.
Guerrillas in five boats broke into the habour and detonated powerful explosions, police said while reporting that two people were killed and 10 wounded in the early stages of the attack.
“The attack is going on at the moment,” Rambukwella said. “Obviously they have come to Galle on a suicide mission.”
He said there were no immediate reports of merchant shipping being attacked, but the naval facilities were under fire.
The spokesman said the military had sent gunboats into Galle — a popular destination with foreign tourists — to counter the attack by the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The military also maintains a base in the area and ammunition depots in Galle harbour, which is also used by commercial shipping companies.
Details of the attack were vague, but residents in Galle, located 110 kilometers (70 miles) south of the capital Colombo, said at least 10 explosions were heard and there was also gunfire in the area.
Police used loudspeakers to ask residents to leave their homes.
The attack on Galle came two days after a huge suicide bombing against a naval convoy that killed at least 103 people and wounded 150 others.
Sri Lanka's military has used Galle habour to import arms and ammunition for security forces following threats at the bigger port of Colombo which is a container hub for South Asia.
Rambukwella said he believed the Tigers chose to attack Galle, in the heartland of Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority, to provoke a backlash against minority Tamils.
“It looks like they are keen to create a backlash,” Rambukwella said.
There was no immediate reaction from the Tigers who in December 1997 detonated a truck bomb near port in Galle targetting the navy commander at the time.
In recent months the Sri Lanka military has discovered large quantities of explosives allegedly transported by the Tigers from the island's north to other areas.
Rambukwella said several other consignments of explosives may have gone undetected and that the Tigers could be using them in the island's south to stage more attacks.
The latest bombings came as peace envoys from Japan and Norway were in the country to try to convince the two sides to attend peace talks scheduled for later this month.
Japan's Yasushi Akashi arrived here Sunday while Norway's peace broker Jon Hanssen-Bauer arrived on Tuesday to try to prepare an agenda for talks the two sides agreed to hold on October 28-29 in Switzerland.
The envoys have been working to resurrect a February 2002 truce, part of a Norwegian-led peace process aimed at ending three decades of ethnic bloodshed which has claimed over 60,000 lives.
