SRI LANKA suffered its worst suicide bomb attack yesterday when suspected Tamil Tiger rebels rammed a lorry filled with explosives into a naval convoy, killing at least 100 sailors and injuring 150.

The attack cast a grim shadow over a week of international diplomatic efforts to persuade the Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to abide by a 2002 ceasefire that has been unravelling since June.

With just 12 days until planned peace talks in Geneva, the attack raised fears of a return to full-scale hostilities in the conflict that has racked the Indian Ocean island for more than two decades.

The lorry ploughed into a column of 15 Navy buses after they stopped near the town of Habarana, 120 miles northeast of the capital, Colombo, to allow the sailors to stretch their legs, military officials said.

The Sri Lankan military described the attack as a cold-blooded massacre, saying that the sailors were unarmed and in civilian dress as they were mostly returning from leave to the naval port of Trincomalee.

“This inhuman act is a clear revenge by the terrorists on the Navy who inflicted successive defeats for LTTE against their attempts of smuggling arms and explosives,” a statement from the military said.

Several civilians selling tea and snacks to the sailors may also have been killed or injured, local officials said.

Until yesterday the worst suicide bombing in Sri Lanka was an attack on the central bank in Colombo in 1996 that killed 91 and wounded 1,400.

The military responded yesterday by launching airstrikes against Tiger positions near the town of Puthukudiyiruppu. But it suffered another blow when one of its Israeli-built Kfir warplanes crashed shortly after take-off, apparently because of a technical fault.

Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan, a spokesman for the Tigers, said he was checking with regional commanders to see if the Tigers were responsible for the attack on the naval convoy.

But if they were, he said that it was justified because government forces had carried out attacks on civilians far from the frontlines of the conflict. “When Sri Lanka Air Force bombers continue to bomb targets in Tamil homeland, far off the defence line localities where the Sri Lankan ground troops engage in frontal assaults, how could anybody expect the Tigers to refrain from targeting military installations?” he asked. The Tigers have been fighting since 1983 for a separate homeland for the mainly Hindu Tamil minority in the north and east to protect them from discrimination by the majority Sinhalese, who are mainly Buddhist.

The two sides signed a ceasefire in 2002, but a series of increasingly bloody clashes have killed 2,000 people this year and monitors now say that the truce exists only on paper.

Mahinda Rajapakse, the Sri Lankan President, said that yesterday’s attack showed that the Tigers were no longer interested in peace.

“The attempt at instigating a backlash on the eve of the next round of peace negotiations clearly shows the evil designs of the LTTE to sabotage the internationally backed peace process,” the Government said.

The attack occurred as Mr Rajapakse met Yasushi Akashi, a Japanese envoy, who is trying to broker a peace agreement and is due to meet Tamil Tiger leaders in the next five days.

Richard Boucher, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asian Affairs, is expected to back the Japanese initiative when he begins a two-day visit to Sri Lanka on Thursday.

Jon Hanssen-Bauer, a Norwegian peace envoy, is also scheduled to return to the island this week.

Thorfinnur Omarsson, a spokesman for the Nordic-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), urged the Government and the rebels not to abandon the planned talks.

“Obviously this is a brutal attack and a serious threat to the peace process,” he said.

“But the people of Sri Lanka deserve that the talks will take place as planned.”

Last week the Tigers successfully resisted a big military onslaught, killing at least 133 soldiers and wounding 500 in two hours of fighting.

On Sunday the Sri Lankan Navy shot and sank a suspected rebel trawler off the northwestern coast, killing six suspected Tamil Tigers.

The peace talks were further complicated yesterday when Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ordered that the Northeastern Province, which the Tigers claim as their homeland, should be split in two.

The merger was a key Tamil demand accepted under a 1987 peace accord. But the court backed a complaint from Sri Lanka’s main Marxist party, the JVP, or People’s Liberation Front, which opposes concessions to the Tigers.

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