Suicide attack on Sri Lanka military convoy kills 67

COLOMBO, Oct 16 (Reuters) At least 67 people, including Sri Lankan navy sailors and some civilians, were killed when an explosives-laden truck driven by a suspected Tamil Tiger rebel rammed into their convoy today, a military official said.

The attack near the town of Habarana, about 190 km northeast of the capital Colombo was one of the worst suicide bombings in the troubled Indian Ocean island.

''Sixty-seven people including many sailors and some civilians were killed and 60 were wounded. The toll might go up,'' said a spokesman at the media centre for national security in Colombo.

The navy gathers its men near Habarana before transporting them to the eastern naval base of Trincomalee.

''There were about 15 buses and 13 were damaged in the explosion,'' a navy official in Colombo, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters.

The attack came as Yasushi Akashi, the peace envoy of the island's chief financial donor, Japan, began talks with government leaders to push a four-year peace process that has been battered by mounting violence.

It also comes ahead of peace talks between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Geneva on Oct 28-29.

Hundreds of people have been killed in spiralling violence in Sri Lanka since late July, and a truce brokered in 2002 now exists only on paper.

Last week, dozens of troops and rebels were killed and hundreds wounded in one of the deadliest battles since the truce.

More than 65,000 people have been killed since 1983 when the rebels began fighting for an independent Tamil homeland.

REUTERS SSC HS1537