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COLOMBO: At least nine people were killed and 90 wounded on Friday in a Tamil Tiger suicide attack against a police bus in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo, officials said.
Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said eight policemen and a suicide bomber were killed, and that "many civilians" were among those hurt.
"Initial details have indicated that a motorbike ridden by an LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) suicide bomber rammed into the bus carrying policemen," Nanayakkara said.
The attack occurred outside a Buddhist temple in the Fort area of Colombo's commercial district. Security forces quickly sealed off the area.
The area is home to the official residence of the island's president, the five-star Hilton Hotel and the twin-tower World Trade Centre office complex – a previous target of the LTTE.
The attack comes amid a mounting government offensive against the Tamil Tigers' de facto mini-state in the north of the island.
The government pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered truce in January, and has claimed to have inflicted massive casualties on the rebels so far this year.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake ruled out returning to a ceasefire, and said "victory is within the grasp of our heroic security forces".
Wickremanayake also said Tiger rebel chief Velupillai Prabhakaran's days were "numbered".
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.
- AFP/so
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