08-14-2006, 09:33 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->68 people killed in Sri Lanka, Pakistani envoy targeted
By M.R. Narayan Swamy, New Delhi/ Colombo/ Islamabad, Aug 14: Sri Lanka's bloody conflict took another gory turn Monday when 61 Tamil schoolgirls were killed in strikes by air force jets in the island's rebel-held north while a bomb detonated by the Tamil Tigers and apparently aimed at the Pakistani envoy killed seven people in Colombo.
Officials in New Delhi warned of "catastrophe" as news came in of the mass killing in Mullaitivu town, 360 km northeast of Colombo, and the bombing in the heart of the Sri Lankan capital that narrowly missed Pakistan's outgoing high commissioner Bashir Wali Mohammed.
Mohammed, the first foreign diplomat to be targeted in the dragging Tamil separatist conflict, escaped unhurt but a car with Sri Lankan commandos following him took the full brunt of the deafening blast, killing four of the security personnel and three civilians and seriously wounding 17.
Pakistan is a key supplier of weapons to Sri Lanka in its battle against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). News reports, including international news agencies, said the bomb was concealed in a parked auto-rickshaw.
Sri Lankan officials quickly discounted speculation that the explosion was meant for President Mahinda Rajapakse, whose official residence "Temple Trees" is not far away, or the Indian cricket team staying at Taj Samudra, an Indian-owned luxury hotel facing the Galle Face promenade.
In Islamabad, the Pakistan government condemned the attack on its diplomat.
"We strongly condemn it. We also regret the loss of precious lives," foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said. "The attack was on our high commissioner who is safe but his car is damaged."
She added that Mohammed was returning from a flag-raising ceremony for Pakistan's independence day when he was attacked.
The Colombo bombing, at 1.15 p.m., took place five hours after four Sri Lankan Kfir jets dropped 16 bombs on the compound of 'Chencholai', an orphanage the LTTE runs at Vallipunam on the Paranthan-Mullaitivu road, killing 61 schoolgirls and wounding 129, many seriously, the pro-rebel website TamilNet reported.
The LTTE pays a lot of attention on the upkeep of the children at the orphanage. Indian officials said the air bombing could prove to be a "turning point" in the current round of violence in Sri Lanka that has already killed hundreds.
Military officials in Colombo admitted to the Mullaitivu air strike but denied knowledge of schoolgirls getting killed. One official told a journalist in Colombo that the LTTE "uses children in its army".
"The situation is very, very bad," an informed source in New Delhi told IANS. "If the two parties do not pull back immediately, there will be catastrophe." Another source said the orphanage bombing would be construed as breaching the threshold of tolerance in an armed conflict.
TamilNet said the girls were attending a two-day residential course on first aid when the jets struck without notice. Mullaitivu district, besides Kilinochchi, is totally controlled by the LTTE.
It said ambulances rushed the wounded, many bleeding badly, to hospitals. Thirty-three bodies were taken to a hospital while others were being identified. TamilNet photographs showed the bodies lined in two rows, mostly wrapped in clothes, and LTTE officials looking at them.
Officials of the LTTE Peace Secretariat called the attack "a horrible act of terror" by the Sri Lankan armed forces. One of them described it as "deliberate, cold-blooded and inhumane".
The LTTE urged Unicef and international truce monitors to visit the scene of the carnage.
The latest flare-up in fighting has forced Sri Lanka's co-chairs (the US, Japan, the European Union and Norway) to call for an immediate end to the bloodshed, which they warned was "seriously unravelling" the 2002 ceasefire agreement.
Violence has escalated sharply in Sri Lanka since December last year, and particularly after the collapse of the peace talks between the government and the LTTE in Geneva in February.
http://www.newkerala.com/news4.php?actio...ws&id=6979<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
By M.R. Narayan Swamy, New Delhi/ Colombo/ Islamabad, Aug 14: Sri Lanka's bloody conflict took another gory turn Monday when 61 Tamil schoolgirls were killed in strikes by air force jets in the island's rebel-held north while a bomb detonated by the Tamil Tigers and apparently aimed at the Pakistani envoy killed seven people in Colombo.
Officials in New Delhi warned of "catastrophe" as news came in of the mass killing in Mullaitivu town, 360 km northeast of Colombo, and the bombing in the heart of the Sri Lankan capital that narrowly missed Pakistan's outgoing high commissioner Bashir Wali Mohammed.
Mohammed, the first foreign diplomat to be targeted in the dragging Tamil separatist conflict, escaped unhurt but a car with Sri Lankan commandos following him took the full brunt of the deafening blast, killing four of the security personnel and three civilians and seriously wounding 17.
Pakistan is a key supplier of weapons to Sri Lanka in its battle against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). News reports, including international news agencies, said the bomb was concealed in a parked auto-rickshaw.
Sri Lankan officials quickly discounted speculation that the explosion was meant for President Mahinda Rajapakse, whose official residence "Temple Trees" is not far away, or the Indian cricket team staying at Taj Samudra, an Indian-owned luxury hotel facing the Galle Face promenade.
In Islamabad, the Pakistan government condemned the attack on its diplomat.
"We strongly condemn it. We also regret the loss of precious lives," foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said. "The attack was on our high commissioner who is safe but his car is damaged."
She added that Mohammed was returning from a flag-raising ceremony for Pakistan's independence day when he was attacked.
The Colombo bombing, at 1.15 p.m., took place five hours after four Sri Lankan Kfir jets dropped 16 bombs on the compound of 'Chencholai', an orphanage the LTTE runs at Vallipunam on the Paranthan-Mullaitivu road, killing 61 schoolgirls and wounding 129, many seriously, the pro-rebel website TamilNet reported.
The LTTE pays a lot of attention on the upkeep of the children at the orphanage. Indian officials said the air bombing could prove to be a "turning point" in the current round of violence in Sri Lanka that has already killed hundreds.
Military officials in Colombo admitted to the Mullaitivu air strike but denied knowledge of schoolgirls getting killed. One official told a journalist in Colombo that the LTTE "uses children in its army".
"The situation is very, very bad," an informed source in New Delhi told IANS. "If the two parties do not pull back immediately, there will be catastrophe." Another source said the orphanage bombing would be construed as breaching the threshold of tolerance in an armed conflict.
TamilNet said the girls were attending a two-day residential course on first aid when the jets struck without notice. Mullaitivu district, besides Kilinochchi, is totally controlled by the LTTE.
It said ambulances rushed the wounded, many bleeding badly, to hospitals. Thirty-three bodies were taken to a hospital while others were being identified. TamilNet photographs showed the bodies lined in two rows, mostly wrapped in clothes, and LTTE officials looking at them.
Officials of the LTTE Peace Secretariat called the attack "a horrible act of terror" by the Sri Lankan armed forces. One of them described it as "deliberate, cold-blooded and inhumane".
The LTTE urged Unicef and international truce monitors to visit the scene of the carnage.
The latest flare-up in fighting has forced Sri Lanka's co-chairs (the US, Japan, the European Union and Norway) to call for an immediate end to the bloodshed, which they warned was "seriously unravelling" the 2002 ceasefire agreement.
Violence has escalated sharply in Sri Lanka since December last year, and particularly after the collapse of the peace talks between the government and the LTTE in Geneva in February.
http://www.newkerala.com/news4.php?actio...ws&id=6979<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->