A bomb hidden with a dead body exploded in north Sri Lanka on Friday, wounding six people, including four schoolgirls, witnesses and the defense ministry said.
The explosion took place near the government-held town of Vavuniya -- on the edge of territory controlled by ethnic Tamil rebels -- as police investigated reports of a dead body inside an abandoned, three-wheel taxi, they said.
A reporter said police were suspicious about the three-wheeler and prevented reporters from approaching it to take photographs, and that the blast took place as the journalists were arguing with police over access.
PHOTO: AP
Four schoolgirls, a policeman and a civilian were wounded, according to a staff member at Vavuniya hospital where they were taken.
The body inside the vehicle was identified as S. Somapala, one of two ethnic Sinhalese men abducted from their village in a government-held part of Vavuniya on Thursday, an official at the government's Media Center for National Security said, declining to be named, citing policy.
The second man, a village guard, managed to escape but was shot and wounded by his abductors as he fled.
His kidnappers spoke Tamil, the guard later told reporters in Vavuniya.
The official said it was still not clear who was responsible for the abduction and the blast.
Vavuniya, 210km north of Colombo, is the last government-held town before entering a wide swath of territory under the rebels' control.
Tamil Tiger rebels have been blamed for dozens of roadside bombs hidden in motorbikes and in three-wheeler taxis in the past several months.
On Aug. 14, Pakistan's then-ambassador to Sri Lanka, Bashir Wali Mohammed, survived a blast from a bomb hidden in a three-wheeler taxi in the capital, Colombo. Seven people died.
A four-year-old ceasefire agreement meant to halt more than two decades of civil war between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels has all but collapsed in the past few months because of heavy clashes that have killed hundreds of combatants and civilians.
Decades of discrimination against the ethnic Tamil minority led the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to take up arms against the Sinhalese-dominated state, with a war breaking out in 1983. More than 65,000 people were killed before the 2002 truce.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion