(Updates toll, government statement) By Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez COLOMBO, March 10 (Reuters) - A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber killed 14 people and wounded 35, including Sri Lanka's telecommunications minister, during a Muslim festival in the island's south on Tuesday, officials said. The blast happened in front of a mosque in Godapitiya in Matara district, about 160 km (100 miles) south of the capital, Colombo, during a festival to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad. "Six ministers were there and terrorists used this opportunity to target us. Only one minister, Mahinda Wijesekara, got injured," Oil Resources Minister A.H.M. Fowzie told Reuters from the scene. Wijesekara is minister for post and telecommunications. "Around 35 injured had been admitted to hospital and among them four are seriously injured," Matara hospital's director, Aruna Jayasekara, told Reuters. Wijesekara was in the intensive care unit and later flown to Colombo. The government called the attack "another desperate act" by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). "The attack reaffirms the fact that the LTTE is not only a ruthless terrorist outfit but also one which has no regard or respect for religion. This is an attack that deliberately targeted the Muslim community," it said in a statement. The LTTE has attacked Muslims in the past, and in 1990 slaughtered more than 140 at mosques in eastern Sri Lanka during Friday prayers. The LTTE could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. "There were pieces of legs and hands inside the mosque's grounds. Around 15 bodies were there at the spot. There was blood all over the place," said M.A.M. Mashahir, a school principal chaperoning 30 students to the celebration. "MUST SURRENDER" The Sri Lankan military has cornered the LTTE in about 45 sq km (20 sq miles) of the northeastern coast and is confident of defeating them as a conventional force soon. But the Tigers have always had the capacity to strike far from the war zone using unconventional tactics, and analysts say they expect that to continue in the near future. The Tigers are on U.S., EU, Canadian and Indian terrorist lists for their widespread use of suicide bombs during a separatist conflict that has raged off and on since 1983. The only thing slowing the current military offensive against the Tigers is the presence of tens of thousands of civilians trapped by the rebels in a 12-km coastal no-fire zone. The Red Cross estimates there are 150,000 people in the no-fire zone. The government says there are no more than 70,000. The International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank in a report this week urged the Tigers to stop using people as human shields. "It has been defeated and must surrender. Its current actions demonstrate its utter disregard for the people it claims to want to liberate," the report says. The United Nations has urged the Tigers to stop firing from inside the no-fire zone and to let people go free, and the ICG urged the government to hold back its assault. "It must not pursue a strategy of annihilation. The Sri Lankan government must hold off on the final assault to allow adequate supplies of food, water and medical aid to reach the civilian population," the ICG report said. The government has promised safe passage to civilians to escape, and says it has slowed down the military offensive to ensure civilians are not harmed. It denies LTTE allegations it targets civilians but acknowledges some may have been killed. (Writing by Bryson Hull; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
A CCTV image provided by DawnNews on March 5, 2009 shows gunmen leaving on a motorbike after shooting at the Sri Lankan cricket team on Tuesday in Lahore. Pakistani police issued ...
