Colombo, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka's military accused the Tamil Tiger rebels on Tuesday of shooting at an ancient Buddhist shrine to provoke a backlash by the country's Buddhist majority.
Most of Sri Lanka's minority ethnic Tamils are Hindu, while the majority Sinhalese are predominantly Buddhist.
On Monday, a group of rebels opened fire with small arms from three sides on the Somawathi shrine, about 170 kms northeast of the capital, Colombo, said a statement from the government's Media Center for National Security.
Security forces guarding the shrine fired back, forcing the rebels to retreat, the statement said.
It was not immediately clear if the shrine was damaged, or if anyone was injured.
The attack was an attempt to "arouse the sentiments of the Sinhalese Buddhists against the innocent Tamils to cause Sinhalese-Tamil strife," the government statement said.
In 1983, anti-Tamil riots helped the Tamil separatist movement gain ground, and lead the way to years of war.
That ended in 2002 when Norway brokered a cease-fire between the rebels and the government.
But subsequent peace talks failed over rebels' sweeping demand for autonomy. The war has killed 65,000 people.
The reported attack came amid a sharp spike in violence across this island nation, with government forces and Tiger rebels engaging in a bloody tit-for-tat campaign that has left dozens dead in just the past few days.
There are about 14 million Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, and about 3.2 million Tamils.