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Suicide bomber on bicycle kills four in northern Sri Lanka

A suicide blast by a man on a bicycle killed four people in Sri Lanka's restive north on Thursday and air force jets bombed and destroyed a training base for Tamil Tiger rebel suicide bombers, the military said.

The explosion in northern Jaffna peninsula killed the suicide bomber and three civilians, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. The bomb wounded 13 others, he said.

"It was a premature explosion. ... There was no target in the area," Nanayakkara said, blaming the separatist Tamil Tigers.

The rebels have a reputation for deploying suicide bombers against military targets and political opponents.

Hours later, the air force targeted a rebel base identified as an "indoctrination facility" for suicide bombers in Puthukudiyiruppu, in rebel-held Mullaithivu District, the defense ministry said on its Web site.

Rebel officials could not be reached for comment.

The violence comes one day after government troops overran at least 25 rebel bunkers on the northern front lines that separate the government-controlled Jaffna region and rebels' de-facto state in the north.

Soldiers attacked rebels with tanks, mortars and artillery, killing 10 guerrillas, according to the military.

There was no immediate comment from the Tamil rebels, who have been fighting since 1983 to create a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils.

Fighting has killed more than 70,000 people, more than 700 of them since the government announced it was quitting the ceasefire earlier this month, the military said.

Tamils, who have suffered decades of discrimination by majority Sinhalese-controlled governments, consider Jaffna their cultural heartland.

The military has controlled the region since 1995, but the rebels operate underground and carry out frequent attacks.

Jaffna is cut off from the rest of the island by Tamil rebel-held territory.

Government military forces have opened four fronts around the Tigers' de facto state in the north. The air force has targeted the group's leadership in a bid to crush the rebels' decades-old separatist war.
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