EXCLUSIVE-Maldives says sinks suspected Tamil Tiger vessel
COLOMBO, May 17 (Reuters) - The Maldives coast guard opened fire on and sank a small vessel carrying suspected Tamil Tiger rebels on Thursday after a 12-hour standoff at sea in their southern territorial waters, the government said.
'We have sunk the vessel. We have captured the five people aboard,' Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed told Reuters by telephone from the Maldivian capital of Male. 'We suspect they are Tamil Tigers.'
A government spokesman said one of the captured men identified himself as a Tamil Tiger and said the boat was carrying guns and mortar bombs.
The Tamil Tigers, fighting for an independent state in neighbouring Sri Lanka, were not immediately available for comment on the incident, which took place several hundred nautical miles off the south of the Maldives archipelago.