Sri Lanka's president took charge of a new panel Friday to halt a slide back to full-scale war as suspected Tiger rebels exploded mines and fought gunbattles killing four people, officials said.
President Mahinda Rajapakse appointed a high-level panel headed by himself to take stock of the deteriorating situation in troubled regions, agriculture minister Maithripala Sirisena said.
"This is to review the situation and take action accordingly," the minister said adding that there will be five more ministers, including Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake in the committee.
The announcement came as suspected Tiger rebels set off another mine against a civilian bus, wounding at least two passengers, police said.
The first attack for the day, at Seerunuwara village in Trincomalee, happened as police were searching for landmines. One officer died and a second was injured, military spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said. "They followed up the attack with small arms fire at the victims," Samarasinghe said. "Police fired back."
A police vehicle responding to the blast was then attacked with another Claymore mine that wounded four more men, a police official said, adding that two of them later died from their injuries.
A civilian was also killed and at least five homes set on fire in what appeared to be inter-communal clashes sparked by the mine attacks. Security in the area has been stepped up, police said.
The latest violence comes after Norwegian peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer failed in a bid to persuade Tamil Tiger rebels to attend rescheduled talks with the Colombo government in Switzerland next week aimed at salvaging a cease-fire.
Norwegian embassy spokesman Erik Nurnberg said Hanssen-Bauer was spending Friday holding discussions with Sri Lankan officials while the head of the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission, Ulf Henricsson, travelled to the rebels' political capital Kilinochchi.
Plan Implementation Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said Henricsson will stay overnight in Kilinochchi to discuss a detailed plan from Colombo to move Tiger commanders from the island's east to the north.
The Tigers had insisted that they needed to hold internal consultations before attending cease-fire talks in Switzerland and demanded transport concessions which Colombo initially turned down.
The Swiss talks were originally due on April 19 but were later put off for five days at the request of the Tigers. The cease-fire has come under renewed pressure in the past two weeks due to a spate of bomb attacks.