Sri Lankan authorities questioned the new leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels Friday after he was arrested in Southeast Asia and flown to this island nation.

Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the insurgent group’s former chief arms smuggler, assumed the leadership of the Tamil Tigers after government forces routed the rebels in May in northern Sri Lanka and killed their revered leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Pathmanathan was believed to be based in Southeast Asia in recent years and was one of the few rebel leaders to survive the government

offensive that demolished the separatists' shadow state in northern Sri Lanka and ended the quarter century civil war.

But as Pathmanathan, known by his nom de guerre KP, worked to revive the Tamil Tigers, the government pushed for his arrest.

The rebels said in a statement that Pathmanathan was arrested Wednesday near a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A pro-rebel Web site said Pathmanathan had gone to the hotel to meet relatives of the group's slain political leader. Balasingharn Nadesan. He left the room to answer a phone call, but did not return, it said.

Malaysian officials declined to comment