Tigers say troops kill rebel-backed MP with roadside bomb

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers said yesterday an Army special forces unit blew up a rebel-backed member of parliament in their northern stronghold with a roadside bomb, and a party colleague confirmed his death.

It was the latest in a string of attacks inside rebel territory using Claymore mines as roadside bombs that the rebels have blamed on government troops, who are using the Tigers' own deadly methods against them as a 25-year civil war escalates.

K. Sivanesan, an MP with the rebel-backed Tamil National Alliance (TNA), was driving near his home in Mankulam in the Tigers' de facto state in the far north of the island when the blast occurred, killing him and his driver, his party said.