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Sri Lankan jets bomb Tamil Tiger hideout

Soldiers of the elite Special Task Force arrive at a parking lot looking for explosives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, yesterday. Security has been increasingly tight in the city as the country has been hit by a series of attacks in recent weeks. PHOTO: AP

Air force jets bombed and destroyed a hideout occupied by senior Tamil Tiger rebel leaders yesterday in northern Sri Lanka, while artillery fire and ground clashes killed seven insurgents, the military said.

The air raid followed a spasm of violence in the civil war including an attack on a passenger bus that killed at least 27 people on Wednesday, the official end of a six-year-old cease-fire between the government and rebels -- a pact that had largely been ignored in recent years.

The air force targeted the rebel hideout near Kilinochchi, the insurgents' de facto capital, and pilots confirmed they had destroyed the target, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.

Nanayakkara said top rebel officials used the compound, but that he did not know who was there at the time of the attack.

Defense officials yesterday also reported the deaths of seven rebels in several clashes across the north the previous day.

Soldiers fired artillery at rebel positions in northeastern Weli-oya village on Wednesday, killing two guerrillas, a defense official said on condition of anonymity, citing government rules.

Separately three rebels died in two clashes across the front lines in Jaffna district, while troops killed two insurgents in Mannar and Vavuniya districts, the official said.

Rebel officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the clashes.

On Wednesday in southeastern Sri Lanka, suspected rebels detonated a 20kg roadside bomb alongside a passenger bus as it traveled through the town of Buttala, about 240km southeast of Colombo.

Gunmen then shot the panicked passengers as they tried to flee, witnesses said.

By yesterday, the death toll from the attack rose to 27 -- most of them from gunshots -- and injured 61 others, Nanayakkara said.

The assailants then retreated into the bush, shooting and killing six farmers they met along the way, he said.

Soon after the attack, a second roadside bomb struck an armored military vehicle in the same region, injuring three soldiers, he said.

Yesterday soldiers confronted a group of rebels in the jungles near the site of the bus bomb and one soldier was wounded in the clash, Nanayakkara said.
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