Sri Lankan navy sinks five Tamil rebel boats

Sri Lanka’s military said it sank five Tamil Tiger rebel boats today in retaliation for the sinking of a navy vessel which European ceasefire monitors said may have taken the nation a step closer to civil war.

The rebels sank the vessel in an attack on a navy convoy that was protecting a ship carrying army personnel from Point Pedro in the northern peninsula of Jaffna to the north-eastern Trincomalee, said Helen Olafsdottir, spokeswoman for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.