Sri Lanka's military and Tamil Tiger rebels are again accusing each other of gearing up for war after peace talks collapsed in Switzerland, with analysts saying an upsurge in violence is inevitable.
The government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) failed a week ago to buy time for another round of negotiations despite intense foreign pressure to keep their Norwegian-brokered initiative alive.
Retired air force chief Harry Gunatillake says the country was dangerously heading towards a conflagration following the failure of the Swiss talks.
"There is going to be an escalation and a large number of lives will be lost," Gunatillake said. "I hope my words won't be prophetic. I pray that I will be proved wrong."
Diplomats involved in the faltering process said they feared renewed air attacks by the military could trigger more bloodshed and add to the 3,000 bodies piled up after the previous round of talks in Switzerland in February.
As negotiators from both sides returned home, Sri Lankan war planes kept up three days of bombings, with one strike damaging the main hospital inside rebel-held territory.
In a clear bid to pull the parties from plunging into more conflict, the island's main international backers -- the United States, European Union, Japan and Norway -- last week asked both parties to act with restraint.
The quartet, known as co-chairs because they presided over the raising of 4.5 billion dollars to support the island's peace efforts in 2003, expressed "deep regret" over Thursday's bombing that hit the Kilinochchi hospital.
"Why did this happen just three days after holding direct talks in Geneva," the Tigers asked in a statement. "The only possible interpretation... can be that the government wants to drag the whole island into a full-scale war."
Sri Lanka's defence ministry last week made it clear that it was bracing for more attacks by the LTTE ahead of the 52nd birthday of the group's leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, later this month.
"The situation created by the Tiger terrorists indicate that they will launch their attack in the east (of the island) prior to the birthday of their leader on the 26th (of November)," the defence ministry said.
Prabhakaran, in his annual policy statement last November, warned he would resume his armed struggle unless the government offered a reasonable power-sharing political solution in a year.
Diplomatic missions here have warned their nationals to stay away from government buildings and public places fearing that Tigers could stage spectacular bombings to demonstrate they are a force to reckon with.
The LTTE's top negotiator S.P. Thamilselvan told AFP during the Swiss talks that Sri Lanka would see "real war" unless the international community pressured Colombo to open a key highway to the Tamil heartland of Jaffna.
The Tigers made the opening of the A-9 highway to the Jaffna peninsula a key issue and said the military blockade was like a "Berlin Wall." The government argues that it was the rebels who shut it with a military offensive in August.
However, Norway's top peace broker Erik Solheim said he was disappointed that the Geneva negotiations failed to address the humanitarian needs of some half a million people living under virtual siege conditions in Jaffna.
Defence columnist Namal Perera said Solheim could take credit for arranging the Geneva talks, but the bigger challenge was to prevent an escalation of violence.
"We are getting into a critical period where the hardliners on both sides will take the upper hand," said Perera, who writes for the Rava weekly. "Violence seems inevitable."
Top diplomats involved in the process said they were getting fed up with both parties and hoped they would return to negotiations after realising that neither was able to overcome the other militarily.
Solheim is due later this month to meet with Sri Lanka's top aid donors who could use a cash carrot to nudge the warring parties back to the table.
He said the island risked losing huge financial support unless both showed progress towards a political solution to a conflict which has claimed over 60,000 lives since 1972.