Blast rocks Sri Lanka capital

COLOMBO – Tamil Tigers killed seven people and injured 17 in an attack on a Pakistan embassy convoy yesterday, just hours after a suspected rebel front threatened to start bombing civilians in the capital, the military said.

The blast, less than a mile from Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s residence, came after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said Air Force jets bombed an orphanage in the northeast, killing 43 schoolgirls aged 15-18 and injured 60. “Definitely it’s an LTTE attack to the Pakistan ambassador’s car but they missed and the backup vehicle got caught,” a military spokesman said.Four military personnel and three civilians were killed in the blast, which bomb squad officials said was caused by a fragmentation mine inside a three wheeler taxi.In Pakistan’s capital, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told Reuters: “He was unhurt…though his vehicle was damaged a bit.”The blast shook the windows of the Reuters office in the capital.Soon afterwards, the three-wheeled autorickshaw was still burning as heavily armed troops and police sealed off the area, only 100 metres from a busy shopping mall.Peppered with what looked to be ball-bearings from the claymore mine, a Land Rover had slammed through a wall.A nearby car was burning while other civilian vehicles were damaged and smashed.With contact with the conflict-hit areas limited, the LTTE report on the bombing of the orphanage could not be immediately confirmed.UNICEF was sending a team to the site of the orphanage.The government accused the rebels of shelling civilian areas in the northern Jaffna peninsula, saying it feared fatalities as the worst fighting since a 2002 ceasefire raged on.The military said it had launched air strikes on identified Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) targets such as camps in the northeast, but gave no further details.Aid workers estimate around 100 000 people have been displaced during three weeks of fighting.The rebels, who ignored a government demand to surrender, are furious at President Mahinda Rajapakse’s outright rejection of their demands for a separate ethnic homeland for Tamils in the island’s north and east.Nampa-Reuters”Definitely it’s an LTTE attack to the Pakistan ambassador’s car but they missed and the backup vehicle got caught,” a military spokesman said.Four military personnel and three civilians were killed in the blast, which bomb squad officials said was caused by a fragmentation mine inside a three wheeler taxi.In Pakistan’s capital, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told Reuters: “He was unhurt…though his vehicle was damaged a bit.”The blast shook the windows of the Reuters office in the capital.Soon afterwards, the three-wheeled autorickshaw was still burning as heavily armed troops and police sealed off the area, only 100 metres from a busy shopping mall.Peppered with what looked to be ball-bearings from the claymore mine, a Land Rover had slammed through a wall.A nearby car was burning while other civilian vehicles were damaged and smashed.With contact with the conflict-hit areas limited, the LTTE report on the bombing of the orphanage could not be immediately confirmed.UNICEF was sending a team to the site of the orphanage.The government accused the rebels of shelling civilian areas in the northern Jaffna peninsula, saying it feared fatalities as the worst fighting since a 2002 ceasefire raged on.The military said it had launched air strikes on identified Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) targets such as camps in the northeast, but gave no further details.Aid workers estimate around 100 000 people have been displaced during three weeks of fighting.The rebels, who ignored a government demand to surrender, are furious at President Mahinda Rajapakse’s outright rejection of their demands for a separate ethnic homeland for Tamils in the island’s north and east.Nampa-Reuters