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Bombing in capital as Sri Lanka resumes fighting


Sri Lanka's army is again engaged in battle with the Tamils

By staff and wire reports

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- On a day when fighting resumed in Sri Lanka between government and separatist troops, a suspected parcel bomb exploded near the official residence of Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

An officer of her security division was wounded in Wednesday's blast, set off just 50 metres from the gates of the presidential base.

The explosion occurred in an abandoned building in the capital Colombo's tightest security zone, hours after a unilateral truce by separatist Tamil rebels expired.

"A member of the Presidential Security Division saw the suspicious parcel. It went off when he tried to handle it," said a police spokesman. The explosion capped another day of strife in Sri Lanka, with twelve more soldiers killed when a Sri Lankan military offensive ran into stiff resistance on the Jaffna peninsula.

The offensive was launched just hours after Tamil rebels called off a unilateral ceasefire.

Door open to talks

Military officials said 40 soldiers were wounded in the fighting that started just before dawn as troops in eastern Jaffna advanced on Pallai, a base the government lost to the rebels one year ago shortly after it lost a key base at Elephant Pass, the isthmus gateway to the peninsula.

"There is some stiff resistance, but they are making very good progress," said Brigadier Sanath Karunaratne.

He said he did not have any casualty figures for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels, but said the government troops had broken through one rebel line.

The offensive came after several months in which both sides appeared to move closer to the negotiating table to try and end the decades-old ethnic conflict that has killed 64,000 people.

Both sides have said they want talks but have accused the other of being insincere.

On Wednesday, President Chandrika Kumaratunga was quoted by state media as saying the door was still open to talks.

"With an unprincipled terrorist organisation such as the LTTE, I will not like to comment on peace prospects too prematurely but we are hopeful of achieving something tangible and constructive in the coming months," she was quoted as saying by the Daily News.

"The door is still not closed to the LTTE entering negotiations," she said.

The offensive came just hours after the LTTE let expire a unilateral ceasefire that had been in place for four months.

The rebels said they would not extend the ceasefire, as they had done three times before, because the government was using it to its advantage.

The government has accused the rebels of breaking the ceasefire 220 times.

The Tigers, fighting since 1983 for a separate Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka, took large areas of Jaffna last year but were pushed back by a series of government offensives which began in early September.

Reuters contributed to this report.