Colombo, Nov 05: Troops deployed by the Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga in her standoff with the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe over peace efforts with Tamil rebels guarded key sites in the capital today while the army reportedly beefed up sentry posts in the country's Tamil heartland in the North. Kumaratunga - who accuses Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe of being too lenient with the rebels - yesterday took control of three top ministries while the Prime Minister was out of the country and suspended Parliament, where Wickremesinghe holds a slim, two-vote majority.

The power play by Kumaratunga - who has wide authority under the constitution to dismiss the government - came while the Premier was in Washington. He was to meet today with U.S. President George W. Bush to secure further U.S. support for his drive to bring a lasting peace in the two-decade civil war, which has left 65,000 people dead. The Tamil Tiger rebels signed a cease-fire in 2002, halting the fighting, but have since dropped out of peace talks and demanded sweeping administrative powers in the Tamil-majority areas of Sri Lanka's Northeast as a condition for returning to the peace process. The rebels have made no direct comment about yesterday's fast-moving events. But a web site that reports on Tamil affairs said Kumaratunga's moves have thrown the status of the February 2002 cease-fire agreement into uncertainty.

"Prospects for ending the conflict (have) dimmed,'' said Tamil net.

Tamil net also reported that the Sri Lanka army was seen upgrading security posts in Northern Jaffna, the city which has been the center of Tamil culture and where Tamil insurrection started in 1983. Bureau Report