Explosion kills over 20 in Sri Lanka
6/10/2008 16:46
Over 20 people were killed and more than 35 were injured in an explosion
carried out by a suicide bomber of Tamil Tiger rebels in the north central
district of Anuradhapura this morning, defense officials said.
Officials from
the Ministry of Defense said Janaka Perera, former Chief of Staff of the Sri
Lanka Army and now leading the opposition United National Party (UNP) in the
North-Central provincial council, was killed in the explosion.
The wife of
Perera, UNP Manager in Anuradhapura John Pulle and his wife, and a few UNP
provincial councillors were also among the killed.
The officials said the
explosion occurred around 8:45 a.m. ( 0315 GMT) inside the UNP office near the
Old Bus Stand in Anuradhapura.
A suicide cadre of the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) blew himself inside the UNP office where a lot of people
gathered to declare open the new UNP office in Anuradhapura.
The explosion
came as the security forces advanced into the heart land of the LTTE in the
north with the aim of totally crushing the organization within one
year.
Claiming discrimination at the hands of Sinhalese-dominated
governments, the LTTE has been fighting for more than two decades to carve out
an independent homeland for Tamil minorities in the north and east, resulting in
the killing of more than 70,000 people.
Xinhua
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