Sri Lanka is in the grip of its biggest military offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels, but the country's journalists are also facing an unprecedented battle of their own.
Unidentified attackers stabbed weekly newspaper editor Upali Tennakoon and smashed his car as he drove to work Friday in the latest in a string of violent attacks against journalists in Sri Lanka.
The attack against Tennakoon, chief editor of the privately-owned Rivira weekly, and his wife came two weeks after another editor, Lasantha Wickrematunga, was gunned down in a similar attack on the outskirts of Colombo.
Since the killing of the anti-war Sunday Leader editor Wickrematunga on January 8, at least eight senior journalists and media activists have fled the island, fearing that they too could be targeted by unidentified attackers.
Earlier this month, attackers torched a privately owned television station that had been labelled "unpatriotic" by sections of the state media for its coverage of the island's ethnic conflict.
"Journalism has perhaps become the most dangerous profession in this country," the privately run Island newspaper said in a front-page editorial on Saturday.
"It is riskier than even soldiering in that a soldier has to be mindful of only one enemy whereas a journalist does not know from which quarter the icy cold hand of death may reach out for him or her."
President Mahinda Rajapakse has condemned the attacks and ordered probes, but the authorities are yet to make a breakthrough in a country where no one has been brought to justice for killing journalists in the past two decades.
"My government reiterates its commitment to upholding the principles of media freedom and freedom of expression, even under the most trying circumstances," the president said after Wickremataunga's shock killing.
Government ministers have said that the attacks against journalists was a "conspiracy" to discredit the government at a time when it had cornered Tamil Tiger rebels with its biggest ever land, sea and air offensive.
However, the United States on Saturday said that targeting journalists was a sign of the deteriorating media freedom and free expression in the embattled South Asian nation.
"These serious reports are disturbing indicators of the deteriorating atmosphere for media independence in Sri Lanka," the US State Department said in a statement released in Colombo.
"We call on the government of Sri Lanka to protect all of its citizens by enforcing law and order, preventing intimidation of the media, and by conducting swift, full, and credible investigations into attacks on journalists, and other civilians," the statement said.
Both local and international media rights groups have joined in demanding thorough investigations and an end to the culture of impunity that has encouraged attacks against the independent media over the years.
The government's own figures tables in parliament last week showed that nine journalists were killed and another 27 assaulted in the past three years while independent activists say more than a dozen journalists had been killed.
Independent defence analysts have either stopped writing or quit the country even though there is no formal censorship. The government has, however, restricted media access to the embattled regions where fighting is underway.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has asked foreign diplomats in Colombo to "weigh in forcefully and immediately" with President Rajapakse to put an end to attacks on Sri Lanka's media.
Human Rights Watch also asked Sri Lanka's government to drop terrorism charges against another journalist, J. S. Tissainayagam, and two of his colleagues who have been held since March 2008.
Activists say the climate of fear is worse than in the late 1980s when foreign correspondent Richard de Zoysa was abducted and killed by pro-government vigilantes, prompting over a dozen reporters to flee the island.
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