Sri Lanka news columns

The Police yesterday while releasing a sketch of the suspected suicide bomber responsible for the deaths of Major General (retd.) Janaka Perera and several others in Anuradhapura, sought public help to identify him. According to Police the suspect is believed to be stockily built, around 24-28 years old with a height of 4'8''. With regards to any information the public are advised to call on the following numbers 025-2222789, 025-2222228, 011-2421111, 011-2436161.

By Shenali Waduge, The Wip. Posted October 14, 2008. "While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him" -- Mikhailovich Dostovsky The tiny island nation of Sri Lanka has been plagued by terrorism for the past 25 years. Citing irreparable differences with the majority ethnic group, the armed militant group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelaam (LTTE) is demanding 35 percent of the country's landmass and over 75 percent of its surrounding sea for a separate Tamil state. Constituting only 6.5 percent of the country's population, over half of the country's Tamils currently live amongst th majority Sinhalese. It was the LTTE that reshaped conventional warfare by introducing suicide bombers -- in particular, the female suicide cadre. The LTTE arguably still remains the global leader in suicide terrorism, carrying out two-thirds of the world's suicide attacks. The real "men of steel" for the LTTE have b...

by Norman Palihawadana and Percy Kuruneru, A’pura Corr. The female suicide bomber who made an abortive attempt on the life of Minister Maithripala Sirisena while he was returning from a Vap Magul ceremony on the Boralesgamuwa Road last week, had been living in a house belonging to a Sinhalese couple in Wellawatte for months without arousing suspicion of her neighbours. She, identified as Shanmugadas Jayabalani, had paid a monthly rent of Rs. 20,000 for sharing the house at Wellawatte with another Tamil family. A few months ago the other occupants had shifted but the bomber had continued her stay, the police said. On the day of her suicidal mission, she had told her landlord that she was leaving for Vavuniya. She is said to have had dealings with another family living at Kohuwala. On an earlier occasion when the police were conducting checks in the area, she had been questioned. Meanwhile, our Anuradhapura Correspondent reports that SSP Anura Senanayake of the Colombo Crime Detective Bu...

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Rasika Somarathna COLOMBO: Police raided a house in Wellawatte where the suicide bomber who targeted Minister Maithripala Sirisena had been residing for some time and took into custody three inmates along with several documents. According to Police even during the recent registration of people who had come from the North and East, the house owners had refrained from registering the suspected suicide bomber who was residing there. Police Spokesman SSP Ranjith Gunesekera said yesterday that in addition to the three persons arrested, Police was also pursuing some leads with information received from the mobile sim card of the suspected suicide bomber. He said Police was on the trail of her accomplices including the people who had sold the sim card. Source

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