Sri Lanka's bloodiest suicide bombing kills 103 people
Pastor Dale Morgan
Tuesday October 17, 12:56 AM
*Sri Lanka's bloodiest suicide bombing kills 103 people*
Sri Lanka suffered its worst suicide attack when Tiger rebels blew up an
explosives-laden truck next to a convoy of sailors, killing at least 103
people and wounding 150 more, police have said.
The Sri Lankan military retaliated with air strikes deep inside
territory held by the Tigers, the rebels said as the defence ministry
said one war plane crashed into a lagoon near here Monday evening during
a "training mission."
The government said the "barbaric" suicide attack, which coincided with
heightened international efforts to restore a 2002 truce, meant the
Tamil Tiger guerrillas were not interested in talks scheduled to take
place next week in Switzerland.
The bombing occurred about 170 kilometres (105 miles) northeast of
Colombo at a transit point in the restive district of Trincomalee for
security personnel coming to and from the front line of the drawn-out
conflict.
Only the chassis of the truck remained amidst more than a dozen buses
parked in an open field where 340 sailors were waiting to leave for
their destinations, officials said.
Rescue workers made a pile of automatic assault rifles and hard helmets
of sailors who perished. The windows of buses parked there smashed.
The fate of dozens of civilian traders selling tea and sweets to the
security personnel was not immediately known, police said adding that
several civilians may have also died.
The government in a statement expressed "deep shock" over the bombing
while the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) tacitly admitted
they carried it out.
"When Sri Lanka air force bombers continue to bomb targets in Tamil
homeland ... how could anybody expect the Tigers to refrain from
targeting military installations," the pro-rebel tamilnet.com website
quoted Tiger spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan as saying.
He said there were unspecified civilian casualties in air attacks
carried out by the military after the bombing.
"The truck had driven into the middle of the open ground, and then the
explosives were detonated," a local police official told AFP by
telephone. "There were about 15 buses."
Doctors said that 98 bodies were at the nearby Dambulla hospital, four
more people died while being taken by road to a hospital in the major
town of Kurunegala while another died at Anuradhapura hospital.
"This barbaric attack on unarmed sailors shows that the Tigers are not
worried about international opinion," said government defence spokesman
Keheliya Rambukwella, who is also the minister of policy planning.
"We are keen on negotiations, but the Tigers are not."
Last week, Tigers fiercely resisted a major military onslaught, killing
at least 133 soldiers and wounding 500 in two hours of fighting,
according to government figures.
The first suicide truck bombing against the security forces was in July
1987 when a truck loaded with explosives rammed into an army camp on the
Jaffna peninsula, killing 40 troops.
Until Monday's attack the worst suicide bombing was in 1996 against the
central bank building in Colombo which killed 91 and wounded 1,400.
Monday's blast came as Sri Lanka's key international backers moved to
salvage a 2002 truce and arrange talks later this month.
Top Japanese envoy Yasushi Akashi Monday met with President Mahinda
Rajapakse and former chief peace negotiator Nimal Siripala de Silva.
Akashi was also expected to meet top LTTE leaders during his six-day visit.
Norway, the main peace broker in Sri Lanka, was planning to send special
envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer Tuesday to work out details for the October
28-29 talks in Switzerland.
The Tigers have said they would confirm whether they would participate
in the talks when they meet Hanssen-Bauer in the rebel-held town of
Kilinochchi on Thursday.
US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher was also expected to
meet Thursday with government ministers.
More than 2,300 people have been killed in spiralling violence since
December, according to official figures.
Both sides have accused each other of sporadic attacks. More than 60,000
people have been killed in the three-decades-old conflict for a Tamil
homeland on the Sinhalese-majority island.