The Sri Lankan Navy said Monday that it destroyed in the morning a suspected arms trawler belonging to Tamil Tiger rebels.

The Navy said that a suspected trawler was observed by its Dvora fast attack craft 50 nautical miles (about 93 km) west off the coast of Udappuwa in the northwest at around 10:00 a.m local time (0430 GMT).

The Navy began communicating with the suspected trawler who failed to respond. After a few warnings the Navy fired at the trawler and completely destroyed it, a Naval spokesman said.

At least six members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE) sea wing members were believed to be on board at the time of the attack, the Navy said, adding that the rebels had been transporting ammunition in the trawler.

The attack came a few hours ahead of the annual policy speech to be made by the LTTE's reclusive leader Velupillai Prabakaran in the rebel held Northern Province late on Monday evening.

The rebel leader's speech marks the culmination of its so- called Hero's Week celebrations.

In his 2005 speech, Prabakaran gave the government a year to offer a "reasonable" political solution or face an " intensification" of the struggle for self-determination.

The security throughout the island was put on red alert all through the week fearing Tamil Tiger attacks specially in the capital Colombo.

On Sunday, some 700 grams of C4 explosives set to a time bomb were found near an Air Force base in the island's Southern Province as the Tamil Tiger rebel leader celebrated his 52nd birthday.

Security officials in Colombo said that on Friday evening a large haul of explosives and claymore mines had been detected in the city.

More than 3,400 people were killed last year in an upsurge of violence in the Indian Ocean island, where over 60,000 have died since the LTTE launched its separatist campaign in mid-1980s.

Source: Xinhua