A suicide bomber staged an attack outside Sri Lanka's Town Hall here Thursday, killing himself and wounding 19 others as President Chandrika Kumaratunga inducted a new cabinet, police said.
The bomber, believed to be a member of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), detonated explosives strapped to his body as two policemen were about to subject him to a body search, police said.
The Colombo National Hospital said 19 people wounded in the blast were admitted for treatment. Four vehicles, including a police jeep, were damaged.
"The bomber had been shadowed by two members of the (police) Ministers' Security Division (MSD)," a police spokesman said. "Near the Town Hall, the man was challenged and then he detonated the explosives."
The two MSD constables were wounded in the attack.
As the bomb went off, state television was broadcasting live a meeting of ministers waiting to be inducted into the new government elected earlier this month. Kumaratunga conducted the ceremony without interruption.
Two weeks ago, the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were held responsible for a suicide bombing at an election meeting of the ruling People's Alliance which killed 10 people.
Two days earlier, another suicide bomb attack in the north-east of the country killed 24 people.
On September 15, a Tiger suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body while he was being searched outside the country's main eye hospital complex in the capital Colombo, killing seven people – COLOMBO (AFP)
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