COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Agence France-Presse) — A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber assassinated Sri Lanka’s highways minister as he opened a marathon yesterday in an attack that also killed 13 other people and wounded 100, police and officials said.
Senior minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, 55, was killed in the town of Weliveriya outside the capital, Colombo, in a blast that ripped through athletes, officials and spectators, police said.
The minister walked up to the starting line where more than 100 runners were lined up and about to set off when there was a huge explosion.
“It was a suicide bombing of the Tigers,” Media Minister Anura Yapa said.
Mr. Fernandopulle, a vocal critic of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and a member of Sri Lanka’s failed peace talks with the guerrillas, is the second government minister to be killed this year.
“We suspect a suicide bomber pretending to be a marathon runner carried out the attack,” a police officer at the scene told Agence France-Presse, confirming that the minister was hit by the force of the blast.
“I hope you will be able to successfully end these games,” the minister said just before the bomb claimed his life. Top sports stars were among those killed.
Sri Lanka asked the international community to “redouble” its efforts to fight global terrorism after the assassination.
“This should serve as a wake-up call to the international community to redouble its efforts to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” said Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama.
He said Colombo had firmly resolved to eradicate “terrorism and freeing the long-suffering people in the last remaining pockets of the north [of the island] from the tyranny of the LTTE.”
There was no immediate comment from the Tigers.
Mr. Fernandopulle was one of the most tightly guarded politicians in the country and was protected yesterday by a ring of bodyguards from the elite police Special Task Force.
President Mahinda Rajapakse condemned the assassination as a “cowardly” act by the LTTE.
The government ordered the national flag at half-staff, and the minister’s burial was scheduled for Thursday with state honors.
Nation Building Minister D.M. Dassanayake was killed in a roadside bomb attack in the same district earlier this year.
A pro-rebel Tamil politician was also killed in a roadside bomb attack blamed on security forces this year. The government denied involvement and blamed the Tiger rebels.
The latest attack occurred as security forces remained locked in heavy combat with the Tamil Tigers in the north of the island.
The Defense Ministry said 22 more rebels had been killed in fresh fighting over the weekend, raising to 2,653 the number of rebels said to have been killed by security forces this year.
The number of security personnel killed during the same period is 155, according to the ministry.
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