Colombo, Sri Lanka – A bomber pretending to be pregnant talked her way into a military complex Tuesday, then blew herself up in front of a car carrying the Sri Lankan army commander, killing eight people and wounding the officer and 26 others.
Government warplanes quickly struck at areas held by the Tamil Tiger rebel movement in a new round of escalating violence that threatens to shred a 4-year-old truce in the island’s civil war.
“This attack is yet another blow to the cease-fire agreement and the peace process,” European monitors warned after the suicide bombing.
Neither government officials nor the rebels spoke about the state of the truce, but tensions have been worsening along with violence that has killed at least 89 people, including 43 soldiers or police, this month.
The rebels accuse the Sinhalese-dominated government of discriminating against minority Tamils and want a separate homeland on the island, which lies off India’s southern tip.
Before the 2002 truce stopped large-scale fighting, more than 65,000 people died in two decades of war.
