COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A Tamil Tiger rebel drove an explosive-laden tractor to a military camp in eastern Sri Lanka early yesterday, drawing fire from guards and triggering a blast at the entrance. At least nine people, including the bomber, were killed, military officials said.The attack came a day after at least one rebel propeller plane bombed a Sri Lankan air force base outside the capital, Colombo, in the separatists’ first airstrike since they started their campaign for a homeland for the country’s Tamil minority in 1983. Three airmen were killed in that attack and 16 were wounded, but no aircraft on the ground were damaged.

Apart from Tiger suicide bombings, almost all the fighting in the conflict has taken place in predominantly Tamil regions in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, and the airstrike showed the rebels can now strike deep inside the southern heartland of Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority.

Following it up the day after with another deadly, albeit less dramatic attack, was seen as an attempt by the Tigers to retaliate for government attacks last week on rebel positions in the north, where the insurgents run a de facto state in wide-swaths of territory they control.

“Any military move in the north by the government is taken very seriously by the Tigers as the north is their base, the Tamil heartland,” said Jehan Perera, an analyst with the independent think tank National Peace Council.

“If the government does not stop its operations in the north, we will see more such attacks,” he said.

Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, meanwhile, said yesterday the government is ready to hold peace talks anytime with the Tamil Tiger rebels over their long-standing demands for autonomy.

“We must try to bring a comprehensive and substantial peace,” Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogolagama told reporters. “Our government believes that we need to talk, we need to explore all avenues.”

Asked when such talks could be held, Bogolagama replied, “If LTTE wants, we can have it tomorrow.”

No immediate reaction was available from the rebels on the offer.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “is disturbed by the extensive and escalating violations of the cease-fire in Sri Lanka” which have led to “massive displacement and suffering for civilians,” UN associate spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York.

“The Secretary-General appeals to the parties to the conflict to break this vicious cycle of attack and retaliation, which only leads to more bloodshed and victims,” Haq said. “He urges them to return to the negotiating table as soon as possible, without preconditions.”

The tractor attack yesterday took place in the Chenkaladi military camp in the eastern district of Batticaloa, a hotbed of violence between the rebels and the government.

The insurgent, three soldiers guarding the gate and five civilians were killed in the blast, military said.

Of the five civilians, four were members of a pro-government Tamil political party, Eelam People’s Democratic Party, which has its office next to the military camp, party spokesman Stephen Peiris said. The party renounced violence and joined the political mainstream in 1987.

One soldier guarding the military camp, two policemen guarding the Tamil party office and 17 civilians were wounded in the attack.

“Our alert soldiers had detected the tractor and the driver, and had asked the driver to stop. When he ignored, they opened fire,” military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said. The tractor subsequently exploded, he said.

There were more than 100 soldiers inside the camp.

Also yesterday, air force fighter planes bombed three Tamil Tiger guerrilla positions in the northeast, but there was no information on damage or casualties, said air force spokesman Group Captain Ajantha Silva.

A rebel intelligence base in Thoppigala, in war-torn eastern Batticaloa district, was a target, as were a naval base and artillery position in the north, Silva said.

There was no immediate comment from the rebels on the incidents and phone calls to their headquarters in the northern town of Kilinochchi remained unanswered.

The Tigers launched their fight in 1983 to create an independent homeland for the country’s 3.1 million Tamils after decades of discrimination by Sinhalese. In the year since, they have pioneered the use of suicide bomb belts and slowly built up a navy of small gunboats.

Hopes for peace that followed a 2002 cease-fire have been dashed in the past 18 months as sporadic shootings and bombings have grown into all-out war in eastern and northern Sri Lanka.

An estimated 65,000 people were killed in fighting before the cease-fire, and an estimated 4,000 fighters and civilians have died in the last 18 months.