Tyrone 6-24 Cavan 1-14

SRI LANKA’S elusive Tamil rebel supremo was wounded in an air strike last month by security forces shortly after his annual policy broadcast, a privately run newspaper reported yesterday.

A man believed to have decapitated his four-year-old daughter, and to have left the body for her mother to find, has been arrested in Washington DC.

THE Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels have told Norwegian mediators they are willing to return to peace talks without conditions.

SRI LANKA’S Tamil Tiger rebels yesterday agreed to lift a two-week-old water blockade on government-held villages that has provoked some of the fiercest fighting in years.

The political chief of the Tamil Tiger rebels today said that his group would use all means necessary – including suicide bombers – if full-scale war erupted in Sri Lanka.

GUTSY Sarsfields upset former champions Na Piarsaigh at Páirc Uí Rinn to reach the third round of the Evening Echo Cork Co SHC, 2-12 to 0-9, and force the city side, with Sean Óg Ó hAilpin and John Gardiner in their ranks, into a relegation battle.

An outbreak of Japanese encephalitis has spread to new areas of northern India, officials said today, as 20 additional deaths pushed the toll from the mosquito-borne disease to 156 fatalities in two weeks.

The Sri Lankan government today asked parliament to extend an emergency rule decree imposed after the assassination of the country’s foreign minister by suspected Tamil rebels, as European peace monitors held talks with guerrilla leaders.

European ceasefire monitors met top government officials today to map out how to save Sri Lanka’s truce from collapse as Tamil Tiger rebels warned of a possible return to war.

Sri Lankan security forces went on red alert today, military officials said, securing a supply corridor into the restive east following a surge in attacks blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels that have endangered the country’s shaky cease-fire.

Tamil Tigers today said they were losing patience with the Sri Lanka government and could be forced to resume their bloody civil war following the killing of two of the rebel group’s senior members in an attack they blame on military intelligence agents.

European cease-fire monitors met with Sri Lankan authorities today, as Tamil Tiger rebels threatened to use their own “air capability” and warned the island’s fragile truce was in jeopardy.

Norwegian envoys who are trying to help broker Sri Lanka’s peace with its Tamil Tiger rebels headed for the island nation today while its president and prime minister remained locked in a power struggle that has thrown uncertainty on the peace process.

Officials from Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebel group are due to visit Ireland this week to draw up proposals aimed at reviving the country’s stalled peace process.

Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels will not resume peace talks with the government until they are granted an interim administration status for Tamil-majority areas, a spokesman said today.