Category: Politics

June 28, 2006 (AFP) – Several schools in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo shut Wednesday following fears that Tamil Tiger rebels may bomb them, officials and parents said.School buses were turned away at key colleges while even some international schools, where mostly children of expatriates study, were also closed amid the bomb scare, officials said. […]

June 28, 2006 (AFP) – Tamil Tiger rebels clashed with a naval patrol and mortared military positions in the restive north Wednesday as schools in the capital shut amid fears of bomb attacks, the government said.Five sailors were killed in the attack, the military said. The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were believed […]

June 28, 2006 (AFP) – Hundreds gathered Wednesday for the sunset funeral of a top Sri Lankan army general who was assassinated earlier in the week amid ongoing attacks by Tamil Tiger guerillas.Major General Parami Kulatunga, the army’s number three, was killed Monday along with four others when a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber rammed […]

June 27, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lankan peace broker Norway goes into crisis talks Thursday to try to salvage the island’s faltering ceasefire, as the assassination of a top army general underscored the threat of renewed war. “It is a case where they want to score something and then say, ‘Let’s talk’,” said retired army […]

June 27, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Tuesday deployed more troops and threw up roadblocks in Colombo as the government tightened security following the assassination of a top army general.Heavily armed soldiers took up positions around the capital while police stepped up random vehicle searches, a senior police officer told AFP. “There is a […]

NEW DELHI, June 28, 2006 (AFP) – A Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebel leader expressed regret Tuesday over the 1991 assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, in an interview aired on Indian television.“I would say it is a great tragedy, a monumental historical tragedy for which we deeply regret and we call upon […]

COLOMBO, June 26, 2006 (AFP) – One of Sri Lanka’s most senior army generals was assassinated Monday in a powerful bomb attack just outside the capital Colombo, police and hospital officials said.Major general Parami Kulatunga was driving along a main highway when his car was hit in an explosion that killed three others and wounded […]

PANNIPITIYA, Sri Lanka, June 26, 2006 (AFP) – Blackened body fragments littered the highway and gardens of this Sri Lankan suburb after a suspected Tamil Tamil suicide bomber Monday assassinated a top Sri Lankan general. The burnt hulk of Major General Parami Kulatunga’s car lay askew near a ditch, its passenger side caved in completely […]

June 26, 2006 (AFP) – A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber assassinated the Sri Lankan army’s deputy chief of staff Monday, dealing another blow to the island’s unravelling peace process. Major General Parami Kulatunga, the army’s number three, was driving on a main highway in a Colombo suburb when police said the bomber rammed his […]

June 26, 2006 (AFP) – The assassination of a top army general Monday was aimed at sabotaging Sri Lanka’s peace process, President Mahinda Rajapakse said.Police have blamed the suicide bomb attack that killed Major General Parami Kulatunga and four other people, including the bomber, on the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Rajapakse said […]

June 26, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s main hospital here received an anonymous warning phone call shortly before the assassination of a top army general Monday, a spokeswoman said. The caller, who spoke in halting Sinhalese, said hospital staff would carry out a “superior job” and that the hospital would have “more work than usual,” […]