'Bomb blamed on rebels killed Sri Lanka gov't minister, wounded 10'

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A Sri Lankan government minister was killed Tuesday in a roadside bombing blamed on the Tamil Tiger rebels, the first successful assassination of a top Sri Lankan official in 19 months. The bomb tore through the car carrying Nation Building Minister D.M. Dassanayake as he traveled through the Ja-Ela area, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the capital, Colombo, said military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara. Another man who had not yet been identified was also killed in the explosion, said Dharmawardena Guruge, a physician at Ragama Teaching Hospital, where Dassanayake was taken. "The minister was critically injured and was in a very serious condition even when he was brought here," Guruge told an Associated Press photographer.