June 15, 2006:
Blast rips through bus full of civilians, killing 64 and wounding 80. Tigers deny involvement. The Sri Lanka military responds with strikes on Tamil positions.
June 26: 2006:
Sri Lanka army's number three officer, Major General Parami Kulatunga is killed by a suicide bomber in the Colombo suburb of Pannipitiya. Kulatunga was the second senior military officer killed in a motorcycle suicide attack in the island's three-decades old Tamil separatist conflict which has claimed more than 60,000 lives.
Navy Chief Clancey Fernando was similarly killed in Colombo in November 1992.
Here are the key dates in the conflict:
1972: Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran forms Tamil New Tigers (TNT).
July 1975: Mayor of Jaffna Alfred Duriappah assassinated by Prabhakaran.
May 1976: TNT becomes the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
July 23, 1983:
LTTE ambush army patrol in Jaffna killing 13 soldi