Sri Lankan police detained two people over an attempt to assassinate the president’s brother, officials said, as 11 people were killed in fresh fighting. The Police Criminal Investigations Department took into custody two men who owned the auto-rickshaw used in Friday’s suicide bombing targeting Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse’s heavily armed convoy in Colombo. “We have tracked down the owner of the vehicle used in the bombing,” a police official said. “Two are being questioned.”Forensic experts suggested the three-wheel rickshaw was fitted with eight to 10 kilograms of plastic explosives and packed with ball bearings which acted as pellets, he said. Two army bodyguards of Rajapakse died in the attack, which also wounded 15 people, including five civilians. The suicide bomber’s body was found on the back of a pickup truck caught up in the powerful blast on the high-security Dharmapala Mawatha road. The head was destroyed beyond recognition, police said.
Within hours of FridayÂ’s blast, two policemen were killed in a Claymore mine attack in northern Jaffna peninsula, police said, adding that troops killed eight Tiger rebels in two separate clashes in the restive east. A soldier was also killed in a Tiger grenade attack on troops in Jaffna on Friday, the defence ministry said. The violence came as NorwayÂ’s top envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer visited Colombo for talks with Sri Lankan leaders on reviving a stalled peace bid. Hanssen-Bauer is due to travel to the rebel-held north of the island Monday.
Despite FridayÂ’s attack on defence secretary Rajapakse, the government said it was still committed to a peaceful solution to the three-decade-old Tamil separatist conflict.