Wednesday, March 2 2005 16:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Colombo: Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has ordered a probe into increased attacks on Tamil rebels, as the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) today (March 2, 2005) warned of "far reaching consequences" for the island's fragile truce, accusing Government forces of supporting violence against them.

The LTTE said Monday's (Feb 28, 2005) attacks against three of their women political activists in the Eastern province could not have been carried out without the backing of security forces.

The President has decided to appoint two high court judges to probe the violence and report within a month.

"The President has further directed that investigations should be made as to whether any group or groups of terrorists or any other forces in the Eastern province are involved in these attacks," the State-run Daily News reported today.

The LTTE said the attacks were aimed at provoking them and asked the Scandinavian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to investigate the violence and make the findings public.

"We fear that such attacks could result in far reaching consequences on the three-year long ceasefire agreement," the LTTE said in a statement.

"Such attacks are clearly intended to provoke the Tamil people and the LTTE, who maintain severe restraint despite having lost senior officials and cadres to such traitorous attacks during the period of ceasefire." One of the attackers ran into a Sri Lankan military camp, the Tigers said.

On the same day, a former Government soldier was shot dead in the same province and the military accused the Tigers of involvement.