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Friday, Oct 10, 2008
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Sri Lankan Minister’s convoy attacked

B. Muralidhar Reddy

One dead, seven sustain injuries

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka Minister of Agricultural Development and general secretary of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) Maithripala Sirisena escaped death narrowly as a suspected female LTTE cadre blew herself up targeting his convoy on Thursday afternoon.

The unsuccessful bid for his life was made as the convoy reached Pirivena Junction, Boralasgamuwa around 1.15 pm on the outskirts of the national capital.

One person died and seven persons, including Deputy Minister of Agrarian Services Siripala Gamlath, who were part of the entourage sustained injuries.

The police said Minister Gamlath suffered only minor injuries. Five of the injured were admitted to the Teaching Hospital, Kalubowila. One died later of his injuries.

Earlier in the week, retired General of the Sri Lanka Army and United National Party (UNP) leader Janaka Perara was assassinated, along with 27 others, by a suspected LTTE suicide bomber in Anuradhapura town.

The attempt on the senior Minister in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government came amid claims by the military that the troops were in the vicinity of the administrative capital of the LTTE, Kilinochchi.

Separately, SLAF fighter jets launched air strikes on two LTTE ‘camps’ located in Puthukudiyirippu, Mullaithivu on Thursday at around 7.45 a.m.

Report

Meanwhile, the Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASA), a consortium of U.N. and NGOs in Sri Lanka, in its report on the situation on the north on Monday said “nearly all of Kilinochchi’s residents are reported to have vacated to Mullaithivu district due to shelling and air attacks in the heart of the district.”

It said that a convoy carrying 655 MT of food crossed the Omanthai border on October 2, to provide food assistance to approximately 2,00,000 civilians displaced between Kilinochchi and Mullaithivu.

In a report posted on its website, the LTTE alleged that while the Sri Lanka Air Force had destroyed a large number of civilian homes in Wanni on the pretext of attacking LTTE military bases over the last one year, the civil administrative structure of the “de facto Tamil Eelam government” were left intact for fear of reprisals on the parallel structures of Sri Lanka by the LTTE.

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