92 sailors killed in Tamil bomb attack on convoy of buses

AT LEAST 92 Sri Lankan sailors were killed and more than 150 wounded when suspected Tamil Tiger rebels smashed a lorry loaded with explosives into a convoy of naval buses yesterday.

The military described the suicide attack, which happened near the town of Dambulla as the buses travelled from the port of Trincomalee, as "a cold-blooded massacre".

A spokesman said: "All these people were without weapons and were going on leave."

The office of the president, Mahinda Rajapakse, said the attack "was further proof of the LTTE's [Tamil Tigers] ... total disregard of international demands for it to abandon violence and seek peaceful means to achieve its goals".

The Sri Lankan government launched air strikes in retaliation in the LTTE-controlled area of Puthukudiyirupu.

On Sunday, the navy destroyed a trawler loaded with arms on the west coast, killing at least five Tamil Tiger separatists. A military statement said: "This inhuman act is a clear revenge by the terrorists on the navy, who inflicted successive defeats for LTTE against their attempts of smuggling arms and explosives."

The LTTE has not claimed responsibility, but a spokesman said if attacks on the rebels did not stop, they would pull out of the 2002 ceasefire agreement and declare a full-scale war.

"The last few days have been the bloodiest in the four years of ceasefire," the spokesman, Irasiah Ilanthiriyan, said. "The government is provoking us and we have no choice but to retaliate.

"[Following] Monday's air strikes in our area, a large number of civilians were injured. We can only talk peace if both parties come to a consensus." He said the LTTE would discuss the issue with a Japanese peace envoy in Sri Lanka this week, as "we are having second thoughts about going for the upcoming talks".

A witness said several buses in the convoy had caught fire, while the lorry driven by the suicide bomber was destroyed. He said the driver's body was found about 50 yards from the scene.

The military said a fighter jet crashed in a lagoon about 18 miles from Colombo after suffering a technical fault, but the pilot ejected to safety.

This year has seen some of the bloodiest fighting since the ceasefire temporarily ended nearly two decades of civil war.

Heavy battles last Wednesday on the Jaffna Peninsula left hundreds dead, despite commitments by both the government and rebels to return to the negotiating table. The military controls nearly all of the peninsula, which the ethnic Tamil minority claims as its cultural heartland.

Fighting has left about 2,000 people dead this year, according to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, which was set up to oversee the ceasefire.

The Tigers have been fighting since 1983 for a separate homeland for the Tamil minority in the north and east, citing decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese.

Diary of death

15 June: At least 64 people, including many children, die when a bus hits a mine.

7 August: Gunmen shoot dead 17 staff of a French charity in Muttur.

4 September: Sri Lankan soldiers move in to take control of a strategically important area near Trincomalee.

11 October: Fierce fighting results in the death of almost 130 soldiers.