COLOMBO (AFP) — Security forces killed at least 13 guerrillas in separate at tacks in the north and bombed a rebel base, the military said Saturday.
Air force fighter jets pounded a rebel base in Pooneryn late on Friday, hours after the guerrillas set off bombs in the southern suburb of Colombo and central district of Kandy, the defence ministry said.
A crowded state-run bus travelling just south of Colombo was peppered with red-hot shrapnel from a roadside fragmentation mine, killing at least 21 people and injuring more than 50 others.
Hours later, the rebels set off a bomb inside a bus in Kandy, killing two people and wounding 20, the military said. Police said they were holding a suspect in connection with that attack.
The military blamed the rebels for the bus blasts.
There was no immediate comment from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who are fighting to carve out an independent homeland for minority Tamils in the island's north and east.
But the LTTE has previously insisted it does not target civilians.
Human rights groups, however, say both sides are guilty of human right violations.
The latest 13 reported rebel deaths came in fighting across the embattled north on Friday, the military said.
Casualty figures there are impossible to verify since the defence ministry bars media, rights groups and aid workers from visiting front line areas, citing safety reasons.
The Sri Lankan government insists it now has the upper hand in the 36-year-old conflict, with the defence ministry reporting the deaths of 4,094 rebels and 339 government soldiers so far this year.
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