Bombing kills 12 at Sri Lanka marathon

A suicide bomber attacked the opening ceremony of a marathon outside Sri Lanka's capital Sunday, killing a government minister and 11 other people, authorities said. Dozens were wounded.

Officials blamed the bombing, the second this year resulting in the death of a senior government official, on Tamil Tiger rebels.

Minister of Highways and Road Development Jeyaraj Fernandopulle was opening the race at Weliweriya town, 12 miles outside Colombo. He died in a hospital of injuries sustained in the blast, said government spokesman Lakshman Hulugalla, blaming Tamil rebels.

Eleven others were killed — including former Olympic marathoner K.A. Karunaratne and national athletic coach Lakshman de Alwis — and more than 90 were wounded, Hulugalla said.

Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan did not answer calls seeking comment. The Tamil Tigers, listed as a terror group by the United States and European Union, routinely deny responsibility for such attacks

Fighting in Sri Lanka has increased in recent months since the government officially ended a six-year cease-fire in January. The truce had been faltering for more than two years as escalating violence killed about 5,000 people.

The government has vowed to crush the rebels by the end of the year, but diplomats and other observers say the army is facing more resistance than it expected.

The Tamil Tigers have fought since 1983 for an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, marginalized for decades by successive governments run by majority ethnic Sinhalese. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the violence.

Fernandopulle was the fourth Sri Lankan lawmaker to be killed this year. In January, Nation Building Minister D.M. Dassanayake was killed in a roadside bomb attack blamed on Tamil rebels.

One opposition lawmaker was gunned down in Colombo and another died in a bomb explosion in the rebel-held northern region.