COLOMBO, Sept 26: Factional violence among Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels left six dead at the weekend, marking a new spurt in violence, local residents and military officials here said.

The bloodshed has caused concern among diplomats and the government who say efforts to resume talks to end three decades of ethnic bloodshed have been set back by factional fighting among the rebels.

In the latest killings, six men from the main Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were gunned down in two clashes with renegade rebels in eastern Batticaloa district, the sources said.

The official said the death toll from rebel violence was the highest during a single weekend in recent weeks. The fresh violence came after a top leader of a Tiger breakaway faction was killed in the island's east on Thursday in what the pro-rebel Tamil website said was an ambush carried out by the main Tiger group.

The government said on Friday the killing of people "holding views contrary to those of LTTE undermined efforts to salvage the peace process." "The continued use of violence to eliminate dissent does not inspire confidence...," the government said in a brief three-paragraph statement.

The Tigers, who want a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, have been accused of killing more than 250 of their rivals despite a Norwegian-arranged cease fire which has been in effect since February 2002.

The Tigers routinely deny involvement in any killings. The internecine fighting erupted after an unprecedented split among rebel ranks led by breakaway LTTE leader, V. Muralitharan, better known as Karuna. He went underground in April after failing to resist an onslaught from the main Tiger movement in the island's east. -AFP