Zeenews Bureau
Colombo, March 10: At least 15 people were killed and 20 others injured – including a Cabinet minister – in a suicide bombing near a ceremony in southern Sri Lanka on Tuesday.
Military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said the rebel suicide attacker struck early this morning, during a national festival to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed.
The blast – which took place near a mosque in the town of Akuressa, in Matara district, about 160 km south of the capital Colombo – came as the rebels continue to lose ground in the face of a fierce government offensive on their shrinking northeast base.
Postal Services Minister Mahinda Wijesekera was also injured in the attack. He was reported to be fighting for his life in a local hospital.
Culture Minister Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene was initially listed as wounded because he was covered in blood, but was given the all-clear and found to have been covered with the blood of other victims.
"We were talking in procession and just passing the entrance to the mosque when there was a blast. I thought it was a big fire-cracker," Abeywardene said.
"My clothes were covered in blood and I started running. Later I realised that I was not hurt, but I had blood from someone who was hit in the blast.”
"There were lot of school children and I fear a lot of them were wounded."
"Six ministers were there and terrorists used this opportunity to target us," Oil Resources Minister AHM Fowzie said from the scene.
Brig Nanayakkara blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). "It is an LTTE suicide bombing," he said.
The guerrillas carried out a similar attack in April 2008, killing Highways Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle as he took part in a national celebration ahead of the traditional New Year.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility from the Tamil Tigers over the latest attack.
The pro-rebel Tamilnet website however reported that at least 74 civilians – many of them children – had been killed and 100 others wounded Monday and Tuesday in Army shelling of LTTE -controlled areas in the north.
It accused the Sri Lankan Army of engaging in "intensified indiscriminate shelling" of known civilian areas.
The government insists it is trying to protect civilians and accuses the Tigers of using them as "human shields".
Two years ago, the Tigers – who have a long and bloody record of suicide attacks – controlled large swathes of the north and east of this South Asian island, but have suffered a series of major setbacks in the ethnic conflict.
According to the Defence Ministry, at least 250 rebels were killed at the weekend as they fought to defend the small area of territory still under their control.
On Sunday, the government said its plan to defeat the LTTE once and for all had entered its "final phase".
The Sri Lankan government bans most journalists and aid workers from the north of the island, meaning such claims cannot be verified.
The government withdrew from a Norwegian-brokered truce at the start of last year, after accusing the Tigers of using the peace process to re-arm.
2 suicide bombers infiltrated Eid procession
Two motorcycle-borne persons
were stopped from entering a Milad-un Nabi procession in Sri
Lanka's Matara city in south but one of them escaped and blew
himself up in the crowd of devotees.
"I saw two motorcycle-borne people with something
protruding in their stomach and asked the other organisers not
to allow them in the procession," an organiser told a local
TV channel.
A virtual traffic jam took place in the area opposite
the mosque in Matara, as the vehicles behind could not move
due to the stoppage of motorcycle-borne people, he said.
In the commotion, one of the motorcycle-borne person
rushed in and detonated himself, the organizer said.