Soldiers pressed ahead with "Operation Watershed" to lift a Tamil Tiger blockade of the Maavilaru waterway in the northeastern district of Trincomalee, the government said in a statement.

Tiger rebels warned Sunday that any strikes against them would be regarded a "declaration of war" but Tiger spokesman S. Puleedevan said they were still in contact with a Norwegian envoy to resolve the issue peacefully.

A top police commando officer meanwhile was killed in a powerful land mine blast before dawn in the central district of Kandy, police said, They blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The government slammed Nordic truce monitors who have been highly critical of Colombo's handling of the crisis and the use of military force to resolve the dispute over water.

The head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) Ulf Henricsson was travelling with Tiger rebels to open the sluice gates on Sunday afternoon when the military fired a barrage of artillery, sending them scurrying for cover.

Henricsson said the Maavilaru dam had been just minutes away from being reopened, returning water supplies to some 15,000 farmer families downstream, when the bombardment started.

"No water. War instead of water. Not a good idea, not a good solution," Henricsson told the BBC in comments reported Monday. "... we could have waited some minutes more for the water so I think (the attack) was a bad idea."

The government said the monitors had ignored established procedures for travelling to "operational areas".

Fifteen aid workers of the French non-governmental agency, Action Against Hunger (ACF), were among at least 425 people killed in the government's battle to open the waterway since July 26.

The ACF head of mission in Sri Lanka, Eric Fort, said he was trying to get access to their offices in Muttur where the 15 local staff members, 11 men and four women, had been killed -- possibly over the weekend.

"Our last contact with Muttur was on Friday and after that we are unable to make any contact or even go there," Fort told AFP from Trincomalee where he has been seeking clearance from the authorities to move to Muttur.

There was no immediate word from the government about what happened to the ACF workers, but Tamil Tigers accused government forces of massacring them. Colombo charged that the Tigers had killed 100 civilians in Muttur.

The bodies of the aid workers, wearing T-shirts, were found face-down in their office on Sunday by a local relief agency which managed to slip into the area before it was completely sealed off to outsiders.

Benoit Miribel, the director general of ACF, said his organisation was stunned by the killings which were unprecedented in its 25-year history.

"We are trying to send a team to find out what is going on in this area," Miribel told AFP in Paris. "But soldiers have prevented us from entering the town which remains completely sealed off."

ACF is one of the hundreds of aid agencies that set up operations in Sri Lanka after an Indian Ocean tsunami wiped out much the island's coastal infrastructure and killed an estimated 31,000 people in December 2004.

Heavy fighting broke out in Muttur and the surrounding areas last week as the Tigers mounted pressure on the military to divert their attention from the mini-dam and sluice gates shut on July 20.

The fighting prevented aid agencies from getting into the Muttur area. However, the military said it had established full control over the Muslim-majority town over the weekend.

Reporters and photographers who tried to enter Muttur Sunday were turned away by security forces. Troops said the guerrillas had shelled the town on Sunday.

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