COLOMBO: Someone is killed almost every day in the crossfire of Sri Lanka’s undeclared war with Tamil Tiger rebels, but the island is likely to be tormented by low-intensity attrition rather than all-out war — for now.

Escalating ambushes, suicide attacks and military clashes have killed more than 700 civilians, soldiers, police and rebels so far this year, raising the spectre of a return to a two-decade civil war that has killed more than 65,000 people since 1983.

Some diplomats believe it is just a matter of time before war reignites. Others feel neither side is ready for a full-blown conflict, and while constantly provoking the military, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are eager not to be seen as the ones to start a major conflict.

“The Tigers are moving towards a war state, but not a war involving mass troop movements. We’ll see more ambushes, more Tamil civilians being killed, more clashes — low intensity attrition,” said one Western diplomat.

“Grenade attacks are the new peace.”

Some analysts believe the Tigers are trying to provoke an ethnic backlash against minority Tamils by the majority Sinhalese, and are using the increasingly tattered 2002 ceasefire to buy time to regroup and rearm.

The Tigers say they are ready to fight a war if one is thrust on them by the government, and told Reuters this month they would resort to all strategies — including suicide bombings — if war resumes.

“I don’t think there is going to be any dramatic change in the situation in the short run, in spite of a lot of sabre-rattling on the part of the LTTE,” said Gerald Peiris, Professor Emeritus at the University of Peradeniya.

“It seems as though the LTTE is responding to a series of setbacks they have had in the recent past,” he added, referring to a series of botched attacks and a feud raging between the Tigers and a band of breakaway former comrades.

The feud, as well as the fact the government is sharply opposed to Tigers demands that their de facto state in the north and east be recognised as a separate, autonomous homeland for Tamils, are the biggest hurdles to a lasting peace deal.

Still, both the government and the Tigers say they are committed to the truce. President Mahinda Rajapakse has tried to convince the Tigers to resume talks, and been spurned. His government vows only limited retaliation for attacks.

The Tigers pulled out of a fresh round of truce talks in April, and are now insisting that Nordic truce monitors from European Union countries must quit the island by Sept. 1 in light of a new EU terror ban against them. Many fear that could create a dangerous vacuum at a time when attacks are soaring.—Reuters