COLOMBO, SRI LANKA // A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber killed 22 people, including a former army officer, and wounded dozens in a blast today at an opposition party office in northern Sri Lanka, the military said. Retired Maj Gen Janaka Perera and his wife were among the 22 dead, and at least 69 more were wounded in the bomb attack at the United National Party office in Anuradhapura town, the military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said.
Maj Gen Perera led many successful campaigns against the separatist Tamil guerrillas in the country's 25-year-long civil war and was feted for his role in halting a major rebel advance in the Jaffna peninsula, the cultural heartland of the country's minority Tamils, in 2000. In August the retired officer won a seat in the North-Central provincial assembly, where he was the leader of the opposition United National Party.
Brig Nanayakkara said the suicide bomber was a Tamil Tiger rebel who apparently targeted Maj Gen Perera because of his successes against the separatist cause during his years in the military. Just hours earlier, a roadside bomb killed two civilians and wounded another in a village near Anuradhapura. Brig Nanayakkara said the separatist rebels were also responsible for a blast last night that struck a vehicle transporting fish on a remote road in Siyambalagaswewa.
He also said the military usually closes the road to civilians at night, so the attackers may have mistaken the civilian vehicle for a military one. Rebel officials could not be reached for comment on either attack because communication lines have been cut to guerrilla-dominated areas in the north. The Tamil Tigers began fighting in 1983 to create an independent homeland for the country's ethnic minority Tamils who have faced years of discrimination at the hands of governments controlled by majority ethnic Sinhalese.
More than 70,000 people have been killed in the violence. *AP