Tamil intelligence chief killed

The intelligence chief of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels has been killed, officials and pro-rebel sources say.
The man, known as Colonel Charles, died when his car hit a landmine planted by government troops in rebel territory, according to a pro-Tiger website.

The government says he was one of at least 34 rebels killed in clashes in the northern Mannar district.

On Wednesday, the government withdrew from a peace deal, saying violence by the rebels had made it pointless.

The accord was signed in 2002, but more than 5,000 people are thought to have been killed since 2006, when fresh violence erupted.

The government says about 50 rebels have been killed since the start of the year, against three of its own soldiers.

The two sides rarely agree on casualty figures, and journalists are usually barred from conflict zones in Sri Lanka so cannot verify them independently.

The Tigers themselves have said nothing about the death of Col Charles - whose real name was Shanmuganathan Ravishankar.

The government denied the claim by Tamilnet.com that he had been killed by a deep penetration unit. It said he must have been caught up in fighting and exchanges of artillery fire.

Either way, his death is the latest in a series of reverses for the rebels.


The government said it injured Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in an air strike in November
Head of political wing SP Thamilselvan was killed in an air raid earlier in the month
Top Tiger Karunakaran Kandasamy was arrested in the US on terror charges in April
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) demand their own state in north and east Sri Lanka for the Tamil minority.

Since President Mahinda Rajapakse was elected in 2005 the government has driven the Tigers out of the east.

Correspondents say it now wishes to defeat them in the north too.

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Pakistanis flee into Afghanistan

Thousands of Pakistanis have fled into Afghanistan with the security situation deteriorating in Pakistan's tribal regions over the past week.

Hundreds of families, comprising some 6,000 mainly women and children, have been crossing the border.

The UN refugee agency says clashes between Pakistan's Shia and Sunni groups have forced people to flee.

It is the first time so many people have crossed this way as for years it was Afghans fleeing fighting.

The refugees have been crossing the border between Pakistan's tribal areas and south-eastern Afghan provinces.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) says historic clashes between Shias and Sunnis in the villages in Kurram, North West Frontier Province, have escalated in the past couple of weeks.

This and the unstable situation in that part of Pakistan have led to the movement of so many people, the UNHCR says.

"It's the first time that we see this in very large numbers which shows that security in those areas has seriously deteriorated and it's probably become out of control," said Salvatore Lombardo, a UNHCR representative in Kabul.

He said many of the people had been given shelter in Afghanistan by villagers who live by the Pashtun Valley tribal code of hospitality, and tents were being handed out to help provide shelter as winter was intensifying along the border.

Discussions

Over the past three decades millions of Afghans fled the violence in their country during the Soviet occupation, the civil war and then in the fighting that saw the Taleban take control of Afghanistan.

With the rise of the Pakistani Taleban and militant Islamic groups along the Pakistan side of the border, the UN says it now appears that parts of Afghanistan are safer for families.

It is hoped discussions within the tribal groups can resolve the situation and allow the people to return home.

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