By Simon Gardner

COLOMBO, May 13 (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen shot dead a senior Buddhist monk near a border separating government from Tamil Tiger territory in the island's northeast on Sunday, a day after troops killed five rebels in separate incidents, the military said.

Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said it was too early to say who was behind the monk's killing in the far northeastern district of Trincomalee, where troops have evicted the rebels from territory they held under the terms of a now tattered 2002 ceasefire in recent months.

"Two gunmen have come and shot him," Samarasinghe said. "It is too early to say who has done it or even who we suspect has done it. It was in a Sinhalese area."

The Tigers were not immediately available for comment.

The shooting also came a day after troops found two-dozen landmines in the beseiged army-held northern Jaffna peninsula, which is cut off from the rest of the island behind rebel lines, and a haul of illegal communications equipment being smuggled to Tiger territory in the north.

Troops siezed 30 global positioning systems and 479 communications sets hidden inside a consignment of televisions.

"The detection of all those radio sets was a major catch," Samarasinghe said.

The finds come as analysts fear a new chapter in a two-decade civil war that has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983 is set to escalate, with the Tigers vowing to carve out an independent state in the north and east and the government pledging to destroy them militarily.

Nerves are running high in the capital Colombo after the Tigers launched a series of air raids using light aircraft smuggled into the country in pieces, and the stock exchange has slumped nearly 5 percent in a fortnight amid the uncertainty.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Boucher visited the island this week and said Washington had suspended some aid because of concerns about a spate of abductions, killings and abuses blamed on both sides.

Britain has already suspended around $3 million in debt relief aid citing concerns over the government's human rights record and mushrooming defence spending.

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