(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-04-25 23:04

COLOMBO -- At least 24 people were killed and more than 40 others injured in a powerful bus explosion in the suburb of Sri Lankan capital Colombo Friday evening, the military said.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said the explosion took place inside a bus at Pilyandala, about 15 km south of Colombo, around 6:45 p.m. local time (1315 GMT).  

Nanayakkara said among the dead were 16 males, seven females and one Buddhist monk, adding that the bomb might have been put on the rack of the bus.

He blamed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels for the bomb attack.

The explosion came as government forces continue a campaign against the Tigers in territory they control in the north of the island.  

On Wednesday, the two sides fought a fierce battle in the Jaffna peninsula. The military said it left more than 200 people dead in both sides.

The troops claimed in July last year that the entire Eastern Province had been free of the rebels and began to engage the LTTE in the north.

Claiming discrimination at the hands of the majority Sinhalese government, the LTTE has been fighting against the government since the mid-1980s to establish an independent homeland for the minority Tamils, resulting in the death of more than 70,000 people in the island.