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A pro-rebel Tamil legislator, Nadarajah Raviraj, has been shot and killed in Sri Lanka's capital as he drove to work, police and a hospital spokeswoman said.
His bodyguard, identified only as Lakshman, was dead on arrival at the national hospital where Raviraj was brought in a critical condition, hospital spokeswoman Pushpa Soysa said.
Gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on their vehicle as the member of parliament from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) set off for work, police said.
The TNA is widely regarded as a proxy of the Tamil Tiger rebels and on Thursday the group petitioned the United Nations to intervene to protect civilians caught in the cross fire between troops and Tiger rebels.
Tamil Tiger rebels and the Sri Lankan navy have also clashed leaving two rebel craft destroyed, the military said, 12 hours after the guerrillas destroyed two naval gunboats.
Sri Lanka's military denied it lost a third Dvora gunboat, saying the navy blew up two Tamil Tiger suicide boats before they could ram a naval craft off the island's northeast coast just before dawn Friday.
A defence ministry spokesman said the two boats of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were attacked north of the Trincomalee town hours after the navy lost two Israeli-built Dvora gunboats.
“Our first report was that another Dvora had been sunk. The intensity of the blast woke people in Trincomalee this morning,” a ministry spokesman said. “But, it turned out that two Tiger suicide boats were hit by us and destroyed.”
The spokesman said the Tiger boats had been packed with explosives with the intention of attacking naval craft, but a gunboat attacked and blew them out of the water. About six people who were thought aboard are feared dead.
There was no immediate word from the Tigers, but residents reported hearing a huge explosion and seeing a vessel in flames and sinking. However, the navy said they did not lose any craft in the confrontation.
Fishing was banned there during the night and it was not immediately clear how the guerrillas infiltrated the area, officials said.
The confrontation came just hours after the Tigers said they captured alive four Sri Lankan sailors and the dead body of another Thursday following a major sea battle further north, off the coast of the Jaffna peninsula.
The LTTE said they also killed about 25 sailors when they destroyed the two Dvora gunboats and damaged a third in intense fighting off Jaffna late Thursday.
“We did not use any suicide boats,” LTTE spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan said, denying defence ministry reports that a Tiger explosive-laden boat rammed one of the gunboats.
Ilanthiriyan said they boarded one of the Dvoras, removed all weapons and ammunition aboard and then set it ablaze and sank it.
“We have removed a 23 millimetre cannon, five light machine guns, a grenade launcher and four 'five-zero' guns from the Dvora before sinking it,” Ilanthiriyan said by telephone from the rebel-held north of the island.
He also denied defence ministry allegations that the guerrillas were targeting a civilian passenger ferry carrying 308 passengers from the northeastern port of Trincomalee to Jaffna peninsula further north.
“We deny the allegation made by the defence ministry,” he said. “We were on a routine exercise when the navy tried to interfere with a small flotilla of ours. That is how the fighting started.”
The Sri Lankan navy and the Tigers are known to have clashed along the island's north-eastern sea board which is a vital supply route for security forces and civilians in Jaffna.
The sea battles come as the United Nations and the United States severely criticised shelling Wednesday by the Sri Lankan army that left at least 65 Tamil civilians dead.
