(Repeating correcting matter in para one and two)

Colombo, Aug 14 (UNI) Pakistan High Commisioner to Sri Lanka Bashir Wali Mohammed escaped unhurt while seven people were killed and some 15 injured when Tamil Tigers attacked a Pakistan High Commission convoy here today, according to the state-run television station.

''The Pakistan High Commissioner has narrowly escaped the explosion, but a back-up jeep providing security for him has got caught in the explosion. It appears he must have been the target,'' a top defence official said, adding a couple of commando troopers in the back-up vehicle had been killed in the attack.

The defence official also said a powerful claymore mine, suspected to have been hidden in a parked trishaw had gone off, hitting the defender back-up jeep providing security for the outgoing Pakistan High Commissioner.

Diplomatic sources here confirmed that the Pakistan High Commissioner was ''safe and escaped unhurt''.

The injured had been rushed to the Colombo National Hospital.

Government spokesman on Defence Matters and Minister of Policy Planning, Keheliya Rambukwella blamed that the LTTE for the alleged assassination bid on the Pakistani envoy and said the recent media reports claiming that Pakistan was planning to provide weapons to the government of Sri Lanka to fight against the LTTE could have upset the Tigers.

''This is definitely the work of the LTTE. The recent newspaper reports that Pakistan is going to provide weapons to Sri Lanka could well have been the reason for the LTTE to try on him. They (Tigers) are desperate,'' he told UNI.

Pakistan is celebrating its Independence Day today.

There was no immediate reaction from the LTTE in this regard so far.

It was only last week that a three-year old child and a bodyguard of a former Tamil legislator were killed and eight others wounded in a car explosion here.

Reuters add from Colombo: In Pakistan's capital, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told Reuters,''He was unhurt...though his vehicle was damaged a bit.'' Soon after the explosion, the three-wheeled autorickshaw was still burning as heavily armed troops and police sealed off the area, only 100 metres from a busy shopping mall.

Peppered with what looked to be ball-bearings from the claymore mine, a Land Rover had slammed through a wall. A nearby car was burning while other civilian vehicles were damaged and smashed.

''I wouldn't rule out mistaken identity. This comes after this bombing in Mullattivu. It could be an opportunistic attack when they saw the military people in the car,'' said a defence analyst.

UNI XC KD KN1650