A suicide bomber on a motorcycle rammed into a bus carrying riot police in Sri Lanka’s capital yesterday, killing nine people, including seven policemen, and wounding 85 others.
The blast came hours after air force fighter jets bombed a Tamil Tiger rebel base in the northern jungles, where 27 guerrillas and two government soldiers were killed in heavy fighting on Thursday.
Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, blaming the separatist guerrillas, said a suicide bomber on a motorcycle triggered the blast as he rammed a bus carrying policemen on a busy Colombo street.
The bomb ripped through the side of the bus, shattering windows and damaging a dozen other vehicles. Located near the president’s office and military headquarters, the blast area is considered a high-security zone.
Anil Jasinghe of the Colombo National Hospital said that nine people died.
“Eight were already dead when they were brought to hospital and one policemen succumbed after admission. About 85 people are being treated now,” he said.
The blast was the first suicide attack since a bomber killed 14 people, including a government minister and a former Olympian, at the start of a marathon on April 6.
If the attack was carried out by the rebels, it would show they retain the ability to strike deep inside government territory despite a maze of security checkpoints around the capital and military efforts to crush the group.
Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan did not answer calls seeking comment, but the Tamil Tigers routinely deny responsibility for such attacks. The group, blamed for more than 240 suicide strikes, is listed as a terrorist organization by the US and EU.
Early yesterday, air force planes bombed a base of the Sea Tigers, the rebels’ naval wing, in their de facto state in the north, air force spokesman Wing Commander Andy Wijesuriya said.
Another airstrike on a rebel military base in the guerrilla stronghold of Mullaitivu took place overnight, he said.
Wijesuriya did not give details of casualties or damage, but said “pilots have confirmed they hit the target accurately.”
Infantry clashes on Thursday in the Vavuniya, Mannar and Jaffna regions, bordering the rebels’ turf, killed 27 rebels and two government soldiers, the military said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to