Blast by rebels kills policeman in Sri Lanka

The officer was on patrol outside the park in the town of Vavuniya when the claymore mine detonated by Tiger rebels exploded.

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels detonated a mine near a children's park in the north of the island on Wednesday, killing a police officer, the military said.

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The officer was on patrol outside the park in the town of Vavuniya when the claymore mine exploded, the military said in a statement.

Another claymore attack was averted when police, acting on a tip-off from a civilian, killed a Tiger guerrilla who was trying to plant a mine in the eastern district of Batticaloa.

Fighting between Sri Lankan forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has intensified in the north and east this year, despite a 2002 ceasefire that international monitors say now exists only on paper.

Soldiers also shot dead two Tiger rebels who tried to stage an attack across a fighting line dividing the two sides in the northern Jaffna peninsula early on Wednesday.

More than 3,000 civilians, troops and rebel fighters have been killed this year in a series of ambushes, air raids, ground and naval battles and suicide bombings.

Many fear that the country may be returning to a full-blown war that has killed more than 67,000 people since 1983.