Blast near cricketers' hotel kills 7 in Lanka

COLOMBO: In a spurt of violence in Sri Lanka, at least 61 school girls and 15 civilians were killed in air raids by security forces in the northeast, while in the capital Pakistan’s top diplomat escaped unhurt in a mine blast that left seven people, including four of his bodyguards, dead.

The pro-LTTE tamilnet website said that 61 school girls were killed and 150 wounded in air raids on an orphanage in the eastern Mullaithivu town, a day after 15 civilians huddled in a church near Jaffna in the north was killed in shelling.

Colombo said the Mullaithivu raids targeted an LTTE training centre. “The Air Force had bombed a LTTE training centre. We don’t know if they had moved child soldiers there,” said government spokesman Chandrapala Liyanage.

In Colombo, Pakistan’s High Commissioner Bashir Wali Mohamed’s convoy was targeted in an LTTE claymore mine attack that killed four of his Sri Lankan bodyguards and three bystanders and wounded eight others.

Indian cricket team, staying in the Taj Samudra hotel some 3 km away from the site of the blast, is safe, its media manager Rajan Nair said. Authorities here said the tri-series tournament in which the Indians are playing would go ahead despite the attack.

The government blamed LTTE for the Colombo attack, which took place 200 metres near the residence of president Mahinda Rajapakse, the first such targeting a foreign diplomat.

The rebels attacked the convoy of Mohamed, a former ISI chief, as they were apparently angry over Islamabad’s supply of arms to Sri Lanka which are being used in the offensive against LTTE.