|
Suicide bomber kills 10 in Sri Lanka
The frayed cease-fire accord between the government and the ethnic Tamil rebels seemed closer to collapse today, as the air force fired on rebel-controlled areas after a suicide bomber attacked the military headquarters here. The attack killed 10 people and injured at least 28, including the country's top military official.Government troops have not fired on rebel positions since the 2002 cease-fire agreement with the main rebel group, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Although no group has claimed responsibility for the bombing, the government attributed the attack to the Tigers, saying it bore the hallmarks of previous rebel assaults. The suspected bomber disguised herself as a pregnant woman on her way to visit the military hospital, the military spokesman, Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe, said. The bomb was detonated near a convoy of vehicles carrying the army commander, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseca, to lunch. The suicide bombing comes on the heels of a steady spate of assassinations and landmine attacks over the last several weeks, which effectively quashed talks on the 25-year-old war that were due to resume in Geneva last week. An estimated 65,000 people have been killed so far in the war. The head of the government's peace secretariat, Palitha Kohona, said in a telephone interview, "We have not gone back to war and don't intend to." He said the strikes on rebel positions were a "pre-emptive action designed to deter further provocations of the type we witnessed today." The Tigers did not issue a statement, but TamilNet, a Web site that is sympathetic to the rebel cause, confirmed that fighter planes had fired on a rebel post in the eastern port city of Trincomalee. A 14-hour curfew has been imposed there. Military officials said rebel areas in the Sampoor region, about 140 miles east of the capital, Colombo, were also targeted. The main highway connecting rebel-controlled territory with the rest of the country was closed indefinitely, the officials said. Helen Olafsdottir, the spokeswoman for the Scandinavian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, said the suicide attack and the government strikes on rebel areas "could jeopardize any possibility for future talks." "There is a desperate need for the two parties to resume talks if the situation is not to result in a serious conflict that could escalate out of control and lead to war," she added. Jehan Perera, an analyst with the National Peace Council, an independent advocacy group, described each strike as an "act of war." "In practice, the cease-fire is a dead letter," he said. The injured military leader, General Fonseca, is known as a hardliner opposed to making concessions with the rebels. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-04-26 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=149842 |