Sri Lankan navy ship damaged in rebel attack

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Reuters) -- Three Tamil Tiger boats were blown up when they tried to attack Sri Lanka's Trincomalee naval base on Monday but the explosion damaged a naval transporter, a military spokesman said.

Two sailors were killed during an exchange of gunfire between the navy and several other boats of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) backing up the suicide bombers, the spokesman added. There was no immediate word on LTTE casualties.

"We destroyed all three suicide boats but the explosion took place close to the naval carrier, damaging it," military spokesman Brigadier Sanath Karunaratne told Reuters.

It was not clear if there were any sailors on board the damaged naval vessel, a transport carrier.

The spokesman said the LTTE also fired mortars from nearby Marble Beach in their surprise early morning assault on the base at Trincomalee, 280 km (175 miles) northeast of Colombo.

He said the firing had subsided but residents in the area said it was continuing.

The strike against Trincomalee was the latest in a series of attacks in the past week after a period of relative quiet in the LTTE's lengthy struggle for a separate Tamil state in the north and east.

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