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Bomb attack on Lankan army chief

     Colombo: Sri Lankan Army Chief Lieutenant General G S C Fonseka was seriously injured in a suicide bomb attack on Sri Lanka's army headquarters on Tuesday. At least eight people have been reportedly killed and 15 other injured in the attack. According to military officials, the suicide bomber had disguised herself as a pregnant woman to conceal the explosives. She by using a fake identity card had gained access to the army complex. While Fonseka is undergoing surgery in Colombo, he is reported to be out of danger. So far, the LTTE has not claimed responsibility for the attack. The military has blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels for the attack and have launched air strikes on the LTTE strongholds in eastern Sri Lanka, bringing an end to the ongoing ceasefire. Following the attack, the main highway connecting the northern government-controlled town of Jaffna to the rest of the country was cut off by government troops.

     There has been a surge in violence in Sri Lanka recently, and the Tigers last week pulled out of planned peace talks accusing the government of attacks on ethnic Tamil civilians. Efforts are continuing to persuade the rebels to return to peace talks in Switzerland. Escalating violence in the north and east of the country has left about 100 people dead in the past three weeks. Earlier in Colombo attacks, Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was shot dead at his home in August 2005. In July 2004 a woman suicide bomber tried to kill a minister and in an attack on Colombo airport in July 2001, 18 people were killed and planes were destroyed. This is the first suicide bombing in the Sri Lankan capital since July 2004, and the biggest attack blamed on the Tamil Tigers since they signed a truce with the government in 2002. The Tigers began their armed campaign for a separate homeland for the island's Tamil minority in the 1970s.