Bomb targets Sri Lanka police
Up to seven civilians die in attack aimed at truck carrying elite police commandos.
Four special task force police commandos were among the wounded in the blast during Monday’s rush-hour, Samarasinghe said.
“It looks like a claymore mine was placed on the roof of a roadside shop and detonated with a remote controlled device as the truck passed” Sri Lankan police officer |
Nine commandos were in the truck that was heading towards Colombo from a training facility at Katukurunda.
Hundreds of troops pass through the suburban area just 15km south of the centre of Colombo every day.
“It looks like a claymore mine was placed on the roof of a roadside shop and detonated with a remote controlled device as the truck passed,” a police officer at the scene said.
The owner of the shop was telling police that the premises had been broken into when the blast ripped through, he added.
The bombing came just days after an army bus was targeted near the entrance to Colombo port, killing one soldier and injuring six other people, and a fierce naval battle off the Jaffna peninsula on Thursday.
More than 5,000 people have been killed in a resurgence of the conflict since December 2005 despite a ceasefire being agreed in February 2002.
Separatist violence in Sri Lanka has claimed more than 60,000 lives so far.