COLOMBO: The LTTE rebels have stepped up attacks on police in the eastern province, police said here on Tuesday. At least nine policemen were injured, three of them seriously, in three separate attacks in the eastern port town of Trincomalee.

In the first attack, a policeman was injured while attacked during patrolling in the area.

In the second incident a grenade was thrown at a police jeep in Trincomalee town which failed to explode. The bomb landed inside a police jeep and the unexploded grenade was thrown out by the police.

In the third incident, at least eight policemen were injured, three of them seriously, when a bomb was thrown at a police convoy on a patrol in Uppuveli. In Uppuveli, four LTTE members, two of them very senior men, were killed by the rival Karuna faction on Sunday.