SRI LANKA: Suspected suicide bomber attacks Sri Lanka bus

A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber blew up a bus in Sri Lanka's south coast resort area on Saturday (January 6), killing herself and 10 passengers and wounding 50, police said of the second bus attack in as many days. The blast near the coastal town of Peraliya, around 45 miles (70 km) south of Colombo -- where around 1,000 people were killed when their train was swept off its tracks by the 2004 tsunami -- comes after suspected rebels killed six civilians in a bus blast north of the capital on Friday (January 5). The blast blew a hole in the back of the bus, which sat on the verge of the island's main road along the south coast, amid tsunami-damaged homes and rudimentary shelters. Glass from the broken bus windows was strewn on the ground. Eleven people were killed in the bombing and 50 others were wounded, officials said. "I heard a loud explosion. I lost my consciousness. All I remember is the police putting me and my friend in a truck and then we were brought to this hospital," said Mohhamed Inshrif. "Something struck my head. When I turned back I saw smoke. I grabbed my child and managed to get out of the bus," added R.D. Padmawathi. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who say they are fighting for an independent state for minority Tamils in the north and east, denied they were behind the two bus attacks. The military dismisses rebel denials as routine and hollow, and analysts worry the attacks will escalate. Saturday's attack came hours after four soldiers and a civilian were killed in a clutch of blasts in the island's restive north, and as police questioned 18 people over a bus bombing on Friday, 36 km (20 miles) outside Colombo. More than 3,000 troops, civilians and rebel fighters were killed in a spree of ambushes, suicide bombings, air raids, naval clashes and land battles last year despite a 2002 ceasefire which now exists only on paper.

ITN Source | January 7, 2007

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