10 March 2000
LTTE Terrorists Explodes Bombs, Fire RPGs and Open fire with machine guns during Colombo Rush Hour Traffic.
Five Tamil Tiger guerrillas Saturday blew themselves up in a building where security forces cornered them after carrying out a bombing and shooting spree that left 23 people dead, police said.
The members of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelamdetonated the explosives after elite military commandos ringed the four-storey building they were hiding out in, police said.
It was a gruesome end to the siege where the terrorists had fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades at soldiers, seriously wounding four as well as several residents of the apartment complex.
Residents said they could see the mutilated remains of two men who died in the blast. The roof of the apartment block was blown off and several walls had collapsed.
"I can see the remains of two people on a fourth floor balcony and the third man's body is at ground level," a resident from an adjoining apartment block said by telephone.
Police said the five were being pursued over their involvement in the violence that rocked Colombo Friday. They said all five died in the blast, although some had earlier been thought to have been killed in the shoot-out.
Friday's clashes began when two constables tried to check on an armed man at a tea kiosk near the Ceremonial Drive that leads to the national parliament building, the government said in a statement.
The policemen were killed and one of the terrorists later detonated explosives strapped to his body while several others exploded grenades and fired indiscriminately at vehicles trapped in the evening rush hour traffic.
The attackers also fired rocket-propelled grenades along a key highway used by ministers and legislators to return from parliament.
Top police official Nimal Gunatilleke said he believed the terrorists may have been trying to target Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte who was due to take that route after a debate on a state of emergency.
A grenade hit one of the minister's advance security vehicles, he said.
In the melee, security personnel gunned down two of the attackers, including a suicide bomber. Police commandos defused the explosives strapped to the man. Hospital sources said the toll from Friday's violence had risen to 23 -- most from gunshot wounds -- with more than 60 motorists now known to be injured. At least six police were among the dead.
London-based human rights group Amnesty International has condemned the indiscriminate killing of civilians and urged all sides to take measures to prevent casualties among bystanders.
Friday's attack was the fourth failure for suicide bombers of the LTTE since December, when a woman detonated explosives strapped to her body at a meeting addressed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga.
The president narrowly escaped with her life but lost the use of her right eye while 26 others were killed and over 100 were wounded.
On January 5, another woman suicide bomber killed herself outside the Prime Minister's office here when security staff intercepted her. The blast, which went off prematurely, killed 11 people.
On March 2, a third woman suicide bomber tried to assassinate the top military commander in the northeastern district of Trincomalee but managed only to kill his driver.
The latest bombing came a day after Sri Lanka's ruling party and its main political opposition held an historic meeting to hammer out a settlement to the drawn out Tamil separatist conflict.
