Sri Lanka capital blast kills 7

COLOMBO, Aug 14: Seven people were killed and 17 others were injured today, when a security forces convoy escorting a Pakistan embassy vehicle was hit by a Claymore fragmentation mine, officials and bomb squad officers said.

A driver from the convoy said the embassy vehicle was slightly damaged, but no one was hurt. He refused to identify any passengers in the vehicle. The Pakistani ambassador was uninjured, the bomb squad said.

''Seven people were dead on arrival. We have 17 other people who are injured and being treated now,'' Colombo National Hospital director Hector Weerasinghe.

The blast shook the windows of the Reuters office in the capital, and hit just hours after a suspected Tamil Tiger front threatened to attack civilians if the military continued attacks on Tamil Tiger rebel territory.

The rebels had earlier today accused the government of bombing an orphanage in rebel territory and killing 43 schoolgirls.

A driver from the convoy which was escorting a Pakistan embassy vehicle said he believed the convoy had been hit by two Claymore fragmentation mines.

The embassy vehicle was slightly damaged, but nobody in it was injured.

The Pakistani Embassy was immediately available for comment.

A three wheeler taxi was on fire. The other vehicles in the convoy continued away from the site of the blast. Ambulances rushed to the scene.

The blast shook the windows of the Reuters office in the capital, and comes just hours after a suspected Tamil Tiger front threatened to attack civilians if the military continued attacks on Tamil Tiger rebel territory.

FIGHTING DISPLACES

100,000 The government accused the rebels of shelling civilian areas in the northern Jaffna peninsula, saying it feared fatalities as the worst fighting since a 2002 ceasefire raged on.

The military said it had launched air strikes on identified Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) targets such as camps in the northeast, but gave no further details.

With contact with the conflict-hit areas limited, the LTTE report on the bombing of the orphanage could not be immediately confirmed.

Aid workers estimate around 100,000 people have been displaced during three weeks of fighting. Dozens are confirmed dead, and many fear the eventual death toll will be far higher.

''The Sri Lankan air force bombed the premises of an orphanage where schoolgirls were studying first aid,'' Tiger military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan said. ''Forty-three ... students were killed and 60 wounded.'' He said the students were between 15 and 18 years old.

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