SRI LANKA: Sri Lanka's military attacked Tamil Tiger rebel targets yesterday in retaliation for a suicide attack on the army's headquarters in Colombo that killed nine. Fears rose that a fragile ceasefire in the country might collapse.
Earlier in the day, a suspected Black Tiger suicide bomber blew herself up in an attack on the army's commander, bringing violence to the capital that had been confined to the north and east.
The government said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had clashed with naval patrol boats in Trincomalee harbour, but that the air and artillery strikes that followed - the first official military action against the rebels since a 2002 truce - did not mean a return to a two-decade civil war.
Some 110 people have died in the bloodiest two weeks since the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire halted the civil war that killed some 64,000, with the rebels still keen to win a Tamil homeland in the island's north and east.
The military said army commander Sarath Fonseka, a decorated veteran who said the truce was too soft on the rebels, had had surgery and was out of danger. It said eight people - in addition to the bomber - had been killed and 27 wounded inside the army headquarters.