By Susannah Price in Colombo

Suspected Tamil Tiger guerrillas in Sri Lanka have killed nine soldiers and a civilian in a mine explosion.

Defence Ministry officials said the troops were in an army truck returning from a raid on a Tiger hide-out when the explosion took place just south of Vavuniya on Saturday evening.

Police have warned civilians to be on the lookout for suicide bombers, and this was the first major mine attack by the Tigers for some months.

The mines, used by Tamil Tigers against army vehicles, are less dramatic than the suicide bomb attacks but can be just as deadly.

Security force personnel checked the routes used by the army and police, but the devices are often well hidden or planted after the searches.

The ministry said the troops caught up in the mine attack had just raided a Tiger hide-out, where they had found three jackets used for suicide bombings, 37kg of explosives, timing devices and detonators.

Suicide bombers

Last August, more than 10 police were killed in a mine attack on a convoy in the east and a similar blast a week earlier killed 14 police commandos.

Most attention, however, is currently focused on the suicide bombers who have caused three deadly explosions in as many weeks, killing some 50 people and injuring President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

Earlier this month, army officials captured a man they said was a suicide bomber and used him to provide information to find another suicide jacket and explosives.

These finds follow warnings that several suicide bombers have infiltrated Colombo.

Clashes in north

Meanwhile, the ministry said eight Tamil Tigers had been killed in two separate clashes on Saturday in the northern Jaffna Peninsula.

On Friday a suspected Tamil Tiger gunman killed a local government official at Point Pedro Town in northern Jaffna.

Vadvel Vijayaratnam, chairman of the Point Pedro Urban Council, was shot several times.

The Tigers launched an attack on the strategically important Elephant Path Causeway, which leads to the Jaffna Peninsula a month ago, but army troops stalled their advance and there is currently a stalemate in the area.