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| Sri Lanka |
| 18 wounded in Sri Lanka train bombing |
| 2008-06-05 |
| At least 18 people were wounded near the Sri Lankan capital Wednesday when suspected Tamil Tiger rebels set off a bomb alongside a packed commuter train, officials said. The bomb exploded between Colombo’s Wellawatte and Dehiwela areas when the train was rolling past, police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekera said. The blast came nine days after a similar attack against a commuter train - also blamed on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) - killed nine people and wounded 84 people. “It is believed that the bomb had been triggered to target the Colombo-bound and highly crowded passenger train. Eighteen civilians, 15 males and three females... have already been admitted to hospital,” the island’s defence ministry said in a statement. “It was definitely an attack by the LTTE. There is no doubt about it,” the military’s spokesman, Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, also told AFP. According to the train’s driver, around 1,500 people were on board when the bomb exploded. Police commandos at the scene told AFP that the bomb, which weighed around five kilogram’s, had been laid on a stretch of track parallel to where the train was passing. |
| Posted by:Fred |