Two suspected Tamil Tiger rebel blasts killed eight people in Sri Lanka's north and east on Monday. The army said a bomb ripped through a road junction in the north-eastern port town of Trincomalee, killing five security personnel and a civilian. They blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who want a separate ethnic Tamil homeland.
"It was an explosion in a three-wheeler parked by a roadblock," said army spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe. "The police had tried to search the three-wheeler and it was detonated remotely." Another soldier died of his wounds after he was flown to Colombo, the army said. Fourteen people were wounded.
An army source said a mine blast on the northern Jaffna peninsula also killed one soldier and wounded another, while a spokesman said a similar attack in the east earlier in the day wounded two police Special Task Force troopers.