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At least four soldiers were killed when Tamil Tiger rebels detonated a tractor and trailer packed with explosives at an army camp in eastern Sri Lanka on Tuesday, a military official said.
The attack came a day after the Tigers carried out their first ever air raid, bombing a military air base adjacent to Sri Lanka's international airport and killing three airmen and wounding 16 others.
In Tuesday's suicide bombing, the vehicle crashed into the Chenkaladi army camp in Batticaloa district, where government forces have been conducting intensive operations against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
“Four soldiers have been killed and about 10 others wounded,” a military official in Batticaloa told AFP.
He said an office near the camp of a Tamil party opposed to the Tigers was also destroyed in the attack.
Military sources said the Tigers had tried to stage a similar suicide bombing against Chenkaladi last week, but that had failed because the explosives had gone off prematurely.
The Chenkaladi camp was attacked last week together three other military camps in the coastal Batticaloa district leaving a total of four soldiers dead and 30 wounded, according to the military.
There was no immediate word from the Tigers about the latest attack.
Relief workers also raised fresh concerns for the safety of civilians in Batticaloa as more people fled their homes and sought the safety of public buildings to avoid getting caught in the cross fire between troops and rebels.
At least 150,000 people have been internally displaced within Batticaloa district, where troops and Tamil Tiger rebels have been trading long-range attacks for weeks.
Security forces have vowed to flush out the Tigers from the restive eastern region after the military captured the key Tiger bastion of Vakarai earlier in January after several weeks of intense battles.
Troops have also tried to capture a jungle base known as Thoppigala from the Tigers, who are leading a campaign for an independent homeland for the island's ethnic Tamil minority.
The fighting comes despite a truce in place since February 2002.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in Sri Lanka's Tamil separatist campaign since 1972.
