Train station bomber kills eight

A suicide bomber blew herself up at the main railway station in Sri Lanka's capital yesterday killing eight people and wounding 100 more, the military and a hospital official said.

"It is a suicide blast on Platform Three. The bomber has got down from a train and exploded," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said, blaming separatist Tamil Tiger rebels.

"The target appears to be civilians," Nanayakkara said.

Telephone calls to rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan's office were not answered yesterday.

Anil Jasinghe, a doctor at Colombo National Hospital, said at least eight people were killed in the blast and 100 more were wounded, 10 of them badly.

"I was near my counter and I heard a big blast. When I looked behind I saw a policeman bleeding," said Ravindra Pinto, a ticket inspector at the station.

"As I took him and rushed out, I saw many men and women on the ground," said Pinto, who was not injured in the blast.

Earlier yesterday, a grenade exploded at a zoo on the outskirts of the capital, wounding at least four people, the military said, as fierce battles between soldiers and Tamil Tigers in the restive north left dozens of insurgents dead.

The attack took place in the bird sanctuary at a zoo in Dehiwela, a suburb of the capital, Nanayakkara said.

He said it was not clear who was behind the latest blast or their motives.

In the volatile north and northeast, meanwhile, fighting between troops and rebels on Saturday left 27 guerrillas dead. The clashes were in northern Vavuniya and Mannar districts and in Welioya village of the northeastern front, the defense ministry posted on its Web site.

Tamil rebel suicide bombers, known as Black Tigers, have undertaken more than 240 suicide attacks in the separatist group's near-25-year campaign. The US, EU and India all list the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam -- as the insurgents are officially known -- as a terror group.

More than 700 people have been killed in intensified violence since the government withdrew from a ceasefire with the Tigers last month, although press access is restricted and numbers are difficult to confirm.

The violence yesterday came a day after a bomb on a bus killed 18 people, mostly Buddhist pilgrims, in the central town of Dambulla, about 150km northeast of Colombo.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa warned the nation's Sinhalese not to be provoked by the violence.

The guerrillas have been fighting since 1983 for an independent state in the north and east for the country's ethnic Tamil minority after decades of being marginalized by Sinhalese-dominated governments. The fighting has killed more than 70,000 people.

Most Sinhalese are Buddhists while most Tamils are Hindus. There are Christians in both ethnic groups.

Civilians have borne the brunt of the violence over the past month with three attacks on passenger buses killing dozens.