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"Bomb blast in Sri Lanka's capital kills 4, injures 24 Associated Press, Tue January 1, 2008 23:59 EST . KRISHAN FRANCIS Associated Press Writer COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) _ Suspected Tamil rebels detonated a roadside bomb near a bus carrying wounded soldiers in the heart of Sri Lanka's capital Wednesday, killing four people and injuring 24 others, the military said.

The blast in Colombo's Slave Island area killed one soldier and three civilian passers-by, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.

Twenty-four people injured in the blast, including 11 soldiers, were taken to Colombo National Hospital for treatment, said Anil Jasinghe, a doctor at the hospital.

Nanayakkara said Tamil Tiger rebels were suspected of detonating the bomb, which had been planted opposite a small hotel and was targeting a bus that was heading to the hospital with soldiers who had been wounded in battles with the insurgents.

Phone calls to rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan's office went unanswered.

The rebels are fighting for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's ethnic minority Tamils and are blamed for numerous bomb attacks against political, military and civilian targets, but the group has routinely denied any involvement.

In November, a rebel suicide bomber killed herself and another man in Colombo after she failed to get near a government minister, her apparent target. On the same evening a powerful bomb went off near a busy clothing store in a suburb of the capital killing nearly 20 civilians.

The rebels have fought the government since 1983 to create an independent homeland for the country's ethnic minority Tamils after decades of discrimination by the state.

More than 70,000 people have died in nearly 25 years of violence"

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