A roadside bomb exploded near a crowded passenger bus in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo on Friday, killing 21 people and wounding 47, the military said.
The blast occurred during the morning rush hour in the southern suburb of Moratuwa. The military blamed Tamil Tiger rebels for the blast, the latest attack on civilians in or near the capital this year.
”The bomb was planted on the road side, hidden in a bush and then exploded using a remote control,” said an official of the police bomb disposal unit, asking not to be named.
A Reuters witness said the bus was shredded by shrapnel and the floor was covered in blood and debris.
”I was on my way to office and suddenly I heard a loud explosion and saw people screaming with blood all over,” said Aruna Wickramarachchi, a 45-year-old hotel worker.
”My leg was also injured from the explosion,” Wickramarachchi said, adding that she was among about 100 passengers on the bus.
The latest attack comes as Sri Lanka’s military presses its offensive to retake the Tamil Tigers’ northern stronghold in daily land, sea and air attacks in a civil war that has killed more than 70 000 people since 1983.
The military blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the blast.
”It is the LTTE who are behind the explosion,” said military spokesperson Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara.
The attack comes two days after the military blamed the rebels for a bomb blast on a railway track that wounded 27 civilians in Colombo.
The rebels, who are fighting for an independent state in the north and east of the island, were not immediately available for comment but usually deny involvement in such attacks.
Fighting between the military and the LTTE has intensified since the government formally pulled out of a six-year-old ceasefire pact in January, though a renewed civil war has been raging since 2006.
Analysts say the military has the upper hand in the latest phase of the long-running war given superior air power, strength of numbers and swathes of terrain captured in the island’s east.
But they still see no clear winner on the horizon. – Reuters 2008