A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday near a convoy carrying a senior Sri Lankan Cabinet minister, wounding his deputy and at least six others, the military said. Maithripala Sirisena, the agricultural development minister, was not hurt in the blast in Boralwegamuwa, about 15 km from the capital, Colombo, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said. Sirisena's junior minister, Siripala Gamlath, was wounded, Nanayakkara said, blaming separatist Tamil rebels for the blast. The bomber was killed, he said. The Tamil Tigers, whom the United States and European Union list as terrorists, did not comment on the blast and routinely deny involvement in suicide attacks. They have been blamed for more than 240 suicide bombings against political, military and economic targets since the early 1980s. On Monday, a suicide blast blamed on the rebels killed a former army general, Janaka Perera, and 26 others in the northern town of Anuradhapura. Government troops meanwhile closed in on the rebels' administrative capital of Kilinochchi in the north, where heavy fighting Wednesday killed 48 rebels and eight government soldiers, Nanayakkara said. He said troops were about 1.5 km from the outer limits of Kilinochchi town. Battles near Kilinochchi killed 29 rebels and heavy fighting in Mullaitivu district killed 16 rebels and eight soldiers, Nanayakkara said. Separate fighting in Jaffna and Vavuniya killed three rebels, he said. With nearly all communications to the north severed, a rebel spokesman could not be contacted for comment. Independent verification of the military's claims is near impossible because most journalists are banned from the war zone. Both sides routinely exaggerate enemy losses and underreport their own. Fighting has escalated in recent months, with the military capturing a series of rebel bases and large chunks of territory. Officials have pledged to crush the guerrillas by the end of the year. The rebels have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent homeland for the country's ethnic minority Tamils.
