Attack mars Sri Lanka celebrations
Bus blast comes just hours after president’s speech lauding “victories” against LTTE.

Officials had said that the armed forces were expecting the Tigers to attempt attacks.
“There have been recoveries of suicide jackets and an LTTE cadre [fighter] last week. They are trying to disrupt the independence celebrations,” Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, military spokesman, said.
Analysis |
Earlier, thousands of police and other security forces took up position in Colombo as the celebrations got under way with Mahinda Rajapakse, Sri Lanka’s president, raising a national flag on the seafront.
A display of military might followed, with Rajapakse reviewing a parade of troops and tanks on Colombo’s Galle Face road as fighter jets flew overhead.
The “challenge bestowed upon us by history is the defeat of terrorism”, he said.
‘Achieving victories’
Rajapakse said that the military now had the LTTE fighters cornered in the north of the island.
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A suicide bomber blew herself up at Colombo’s main railway station on Sunday [Reuters] |
A suicide bombing at the capital’s main railway station on Sunday was preceded by an attack at the city’s zoo which injured at least six people.
A more powerful bomb was found and defused in the same area several hours earlier, police said.
On Saturday, an explosion on a bus in the central town of Dambulla, about 150km northeast of Colombo, killed at least 18 people.