Roadside bomb kills five,wounds 26 in Lanka

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COLOMBO, Jan 2 (AFP): Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels set off a powerful roadside bomb in the Sri Lankan capital Wednesday, killing at least five people and wounding 26 others, police said.
The powerful Claymore mine-a fragmentation bomb packed with ball bearings-targeted an army bus transporting wounded soldiers, although hospital officials said most of the victims were civilians.
A police official at the scene said five people were killed in the attack-three of them died instantly, while two others died en route to the hospital.
Twenty-six more were injured and rushed to Colombo National Hospital, officials said. Seven of them were in critical condition.
Hospital director Hector Weerasinghe said most of those killed or injured were civilians-with just one soldier reported killed and 11 hurt. There were no reports of any foreign nationals among the casualties.
The mine went off as the army bus passed the low-budget Nippon Hotel in Colombo's commercial Slave Island area, where the military has several key installations, police and witnesses said.
"We suspect it was a roadside bomb," a police official at the scene said. "There are several civilian casualties. At least another civilian bus was also hit by the blast."
Sri Lanka's defence ministry blamed Tamil guerrillas, who have frequently used roadside bombs in their decades-old war for an independent homeland in the north and east of the ethnic Sinhalese-majority island.
The attack comes amid renewed heavy fighting in the north of the island, and after Sri Lanka's top military commanders vowed to push for victory against the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the new year.
"LTTE terrorists have carried out a cowardly bomb attack targeting civilians and an army bus carrying sick personnel," the defence ministry said in a statement.
It said the mine had been placed inside an air conditioning unit installed at the Nippon hotel, which suffered extensive damage and counted some of its staff members as among those wounded.
Police and troops cordoned off the scene as forensic experts began sifting through the wreckage and rubble strewn across a four-lane highway.
Army engineering units, the air force headquarters and the police VIP security unit are located in the Slave Island area where a section of the road opposite the Nippon is closed at night as part of tight security measures.
A similar roadside bomb killed 16 people on December 5 in the north-central district of Anuradhapura. Another 19 people were killed in a bomb attack outside a clothing store in the Colombo suburb of Nugegoda on November 28.
The latest attack came the day after a gunman shot dead a prominent opposition Tamil MP inside a Hindu temple in Colombo.