COLOMBO, July 25: Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels on Sunday killed eight rivals in the worst outbreak of violence in three months as Norway prepared to launch a fresh bid to save the island's peace process.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) told local Tamil-language reporters that they killed the eight men at a "safe house" of the breakaway faction of renegade regional commander V. Muralitharan, better known as Karuna.

The Tiger officials said a government soldier, believed to be a military intelligence officer, was among the eight men killed at Kottawa, a suburb of the capital, but the army denied one of their men had been involved.

The LTTE in a statement posted on its peace secretariat web site said the men who killed top aides of Karuna "surrendered" to them on Sunday in the eastern district of Ampara, 350 kilometres east of here.

"They reported that they were with the Karuna faction till Saturday and had strong difference of opinion all the while and at 01.00 hours today, shot dead seven of Karuna's men," the statement said.

"Those killed are Kuganesan, Castro, Kesavan, Ruban, Arparan, Vicky and Vimalkanth," the statement said without referring to the eighth victim identified by police as a member of the majority Sinhalese community.

The Tigers said that the men had been provided with "military protection". The defence ministry in a statement denied any military involvement. "There doesn't appear to have been any struggle and the victims seemed to have been killed in their sleep," a police official said.

Karuna led an unprecedented split in the Tigers in March and went underground five weeks later, after disbanding some 5,000 to 6,000 combatants under him. His fate remains unknown and the military has denied it was providing him with protection despite a government admission earlier that sections of the security forces may be colluding with the rebel renegade.

Norway was set to launch a fresh bid to salvage the faltering peace process with a visit here by Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen, who arrived here on Sunday, diplomats said. -AFP