Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels triggered two anti-personnel mines outside Sri Lanka's capital early yesterday, wounding two people in the first such attacks near Colombo since the country's 2002 ceasefire.
The twin blasts wounded a bus driver and a conductor, but missed a navy convoy that was their apparent target, the military said.
The attacks came as government and rebel officials prepared to meet in the Norwegian capital on Thursday and Friday to review the ceasefire, which appears increasingly tenuous due to violence that has killed at least 375 people since the beginning of April.
The mine blasts took place near a navy camp on a side road of a highway connecting Colombo with the country's only international airport. It damaged a state-run bus and wounded the driver and conductor, navy spokesman D.K.P Dassanayake said. The bus had just come out of its depot and had no passengers.
"Their main target was our buses that take navy personnel to duty, but apparently they triggered the mines prematurely," Dassanayake said.
Dassanayake blamed the attack on Tiger rebels.
Anti-personnel mines, which fire hundreds of steel balls propelled by plastic explosives and can be detonated by remote control, are a preferred weapon of the insurgents. Until now, they have been used only in the country's northeast, where the Tigers control parts of the countryside.
The only attacks in or around Colombo attributed to the rebels since the 2002 cease-fire have been suicide bombings.
In April, a female rebel bomber targeted the country's top military general at a military base in Colombo. Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka escaped the attack with abdominal and chest injuries, but at least 12 other people died in the blast, prompting the government to retaliate against Tamil rebel bases and pushing Sri Lanka closer to a resumption of full-scale civil war.
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