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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| 5 dead in LTTE suicide bombing |
| 2004-07-07 |
| Guess the cease-fire’s over ... At least five people were killed and 11 wounded when a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber blew herself up inside a police station in the Sri Lankan capital on Wednesday, shattering more than two years of relative peace. Police said the woman detonated the bomb as she was being frisked, but that the target was government minister Douglas Devananda, a Tamil who is a vocal opponent of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). "A female has gone into the ministry of Douglas Devananda and wanted to meet him... Permission was not granted. People from ministerial security followed her and these officials took her into the police station. While they (police) tried to search her she exploded herself," said police spokesman Rienzie Perera. "It is obvious Douglas was the target," he said. No one claimed responsibility and the Tigers offered no immediate comment about the attack, which happened on Colombo’s main thoroughfare, near the prime minister’s official residence and across the road from the U.S. and British embassies. The Tigers terrorized the capital with numerous suicide bomb attacks during the war and on Monday they observed "Black Tiger Day," which commemorates their suicide bombers. But while they have mostly respected the Norwegian-brokered truce, human rights groups accuse them of targeting rival Tamil politicians, mostly in the island’s east, where a split within the LTTE has complicated the peace bid. Since the split, local media have said, Devananda has been in contact with Karuna, the commander of the renegade rebel faction. The rebels have a very strong presence in Devananda’s seat of Jaffna, and on visits there he stays barricaded in an old cinema under army protection. Police said apart from the bomber, all four dead were police officers, including two women. Broken glass and blood covered the floor of the police station, which was under heavy guard. "I saw many people being pulled out with injuries, including one with no arm," said one witness. The director of Colombo’s National Hospital said 13 people had been brought in for treatment, of whom four had died. "We have not been informed of any more people coming. These people here are not critical," Hector Weerasinghe told Reuters, referring to the nine wounded being treated in his hospital. Six were police officers, he said. Witnesses said those in hospital were crying and in shock, surrounded by grieving police officers trying to offer comfort. In Colombo, attention turned to the fate of the cease-fire, which has brought the island peace of mind, a rebounding economy and a capital largely free of checkpoints and roadblocks. Monitors overseeing the truce and a Norwegian official said they had had no comment from the Tigers regarding the truce. But the rebels have stepped up their rhetoric against the army in the past week, accusing it of helping a rival faction led by a breakaway commander known as Karuna to foment violence in his eastern stronghold, where gun attacks killed one and wounded three on Monday. The military has repeatedly denied the charges, despite a government spokesman admitting it had helped Karuna’s faction. Military spokesman Colonel Sumedha Perera said it was too early to say if security would be stepped up. "There is no fresh deployment, but we have put troops on alert," he said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |