COLOMBO : At least 10 people were killed and 86 others wounded in a Tamil Tiger suicide bombing near the official residence of Sri Lanka's president in the capital Colombo, officials said Friday.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said eight police officers and two other people died when the bomber on a motorbike slammed into a bus carrying police.

The massive blast was heard across the city.

The car of sports minister Gamini Lokuge was also hit by the explosion, police said. Lokuge was not in the vehicle, but his driver was among the dead.

At least 50 civilians, 30 policemen and six soldiers were among those wounded, said national hospital director Hector Weerasinghe.

"A motorbike carrying a LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) suicide bomber rammed into a bus carrying police personnel," Nanayakkara said.

The attack occurred outside a Buddhist temple in Colombo's commercial district, a high security zone surrounded by rings of military and police check posts.

The area is home to the official residence of the island's President Mahinda Rajapakse, the five-star Hilton and Galadari Hotels and the twin-tower World Trade Centre office complex -- a previous LTTE target.

"Our building shook and there was thick black smoke. We're still shaken up," said office executive Dayan Gunasekera, who works across the road from the bombing site.

Rajapakse said the attack only reinforced his decision in January to pull out of a Norwegian-brokered truce with the Tigers and step up a military offensive against the rebels' mini-state in the island's north.

"Repeated savagery reiterates the need for concerted action by all those who cherish democracy, human rights and the values of civilised society, to eradicate the menace of terrorism," he said.

Rajapakse's government was due later Friday to swear in the winners of last weekend's key council elections in the island's east, which were won by the president's ruling coalition and an allied party made up of LTTE defectors.

The government heralded the polls as a sign it has established firm control over the multi-ethnic east, which before heavy fighting last year was home to several Tiger enclaves.

The LTTE did not immediately confirm or deny it carried out the bombing. But the pro-rebel TamilNet.com website said the attack targeted police travelling to provide security for the swearing-in ceremony.

The leader of the Tamil Tiger breakaway group was sworn in as the east's new chief minister late Friday, the government said.

Elsewhere, at least 37 rebels and two security force personnel were killed during two days fighting in the island's tense north that ended Friday, the ministry said.

Since January, government troops have killed at least 3,700 guerrillas while 276 soldiers have died in combat during the same period, according to ministry figures.

Casualty figures cannot be independently verified as Colombo bars journalists and rights groups from travelling to embattled areas.

Colombo has poured a record 1.5 billion dollars into the war effort this year, hoping for a quick end to a conflict that has left tens of thousands dead since 1972.

The rebels are fighting to carve out a separate Tamil homeland in the north and east of the ethnic Sinhalese-majority island, and frequently deploy what they call "Black Tigers" -- members of a unit trained for suicide missions.

Friday's bombing was the third major Tamil Tiger attack in just a week.

On the eve of the May 10 provincial elections, a bomb ripped through a crowded cafe in the eastern town of Ampara, killing 12 people and wounding at least 36.

Hours before polling started, an LTTE suicide diver also sank a navy cargo ship docked at the eastern port of Trincomalee.

- AFP /ls