At least 14 people were killed in two roadside bombings in Sri Lanka on Monday, as the island's president marked independence day by insisting he was winning the war against Tamil Tiger rebels.
A bomb in the northeast of the ethnically-divided island killed 13 bus passengers and wounded 16 others, including children, the military said, adding that among the dead were two women and two off-duty soldiers. A similar blast in the south against a military vehicle killed one soldier. Three other soldiers escaped with injuries, police said.
The attacks, both blamed on the Tamil Tigers, came hours after an annual military parade at Colombo's seaside Galle Face promenade to mark Sri Lanka's 60th anniversary of independence from Britain.
In an address to the nation, President Mahinda Rajapakse said the "challenge bestowed upon us by history is the defeat of terrorism," and said government forces had cornered the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the north.
"We faced this challenge squarely without avoiding it. Our security forces are today achieving victories against terrorism unprecedented in history," he said. According to the defence ministry, the rebels have lost at least 908 fighters since the beginning of the year, compared to just 37 government soldiers killed. Scores of civilians have also died during the same period, according to both sides.
A mass funeral was conducted Monday for five students and their baseball coach killed in a suicide bomb attack at a train terminal here on the eve of the independence day celebrations.
The coffins of two more students killed in the same blast were to be taken to their school later Monday. The government ordered all schools in the capital to shut for a week.
Two more blasts just outside the capital earlier Monday did not cause any casualties, but an electricity transformer was destroyed in one of the attacks, police said. To mark independence day, the island's prisons chief said around 2,280 inmates serving time for minor offences had received amnesties.