India, US worried as Tigers build air force

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh voiced "concern", while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "took serious note" during a separate briefing in Washington by foreign ministry officials, the Sri Lankan government said.

"Particular concern was expressed over the illegal acquisition of air capability," the governments of India and Sri Lanka said in a joint statement issued late on Friday, a day after the two South Asian leaders met in New Delhi.

Sri Lankan officials also discussed the possibility of suicide air attacks by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during talks with US security officials in Washington.

"She (Rice) said the US government took serious note of the LTTE's acquisition of air capability," Sri Lanka's Washington mission said in a statement on Saturday.

Nordic monitors of a 2002 ceasefire have flown over the rebels' airfield in the island's north, but cannot confirm intelligence reports that the Tigers have assembled two light aircraft from smuggled components.

The Tigers, whose two-decade war for self-rule killed over 64,000 people until the truce pushed their struggle into limbo, have not given the Nordic Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission access to the airfield.

The rebels refuse to discuss whether they have aircraft.

"Air assets in an organisation like the LTTE means a hell of a lot military-wise because we're talking about asymmetric warfare," chief monitor Hagrup Haukland said in late May. "Those two aircraft, if they have any, represent a very serious threat."