Narrow shave for Defence Secy.

Suicide cadres move around with relative ease

by Jayampathy Jayasinghe

The Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa escaped unscathed on Friday morning at the Piththala junction in Kollupitiya when a suicide bomber rammed his trishaw laden with explosives into the convoy of vehicles escorting the Defence Secretary. He was on his way to "Temple Trees" to attend a meeting.

The attack was carried out around 10.40 a.m. while his vehicle approached the traffic colour lights at Anagarika Dharmapala Mawatha and Sir James Peiris Mawatha Junction. Two soldiers were killed and 14 others injured, who were admitted to the Colombo National Hospital, and their condition is still not out of danger, according to hospital sources.

Commandant of the Special Task Force (STF) DIG Nimal Leuke said the suicide bomber's strategy was to bring his trishaw alongside the Defence Secretary's vehicle and then activate the bomb to cause maximum destruction to the vehicle. But fortunately within spilt seconds the Defence Secretary's vehicle slightly swerved to the right when it approached the traffic lights at Anagarika Dharmapala Mawatha Junction, thus avoiding the full impact of the blast, which would have thrown away the vehicle resulting in huge damage.

DIG Leuke opined that the suicide bomber probably had carried a claymore mine fixed on to the right side of the trishaw. This was quite evident because the trishaw was completely gutted and the engine was found on top of a roof. He said the type of claymore mine is probably similar to the one that was detected at the Borella junction recently. "During the past few months the STF have recovered several claymore mines in Colombo," he said.

DIG Colombo Rohan Abeywardena said they have traced the owner of the trishaw who had provided valuable information to the Criminal Investigation Department for further probing. He said he was optimistic that there would be breakthrough soon.

Meanwhile, the Director of the Colombo Crime Division SSP, Sarath Lugoda said they had questioned about 25 persons and investigations are also being made by them to assist the CID. As we warned in our earlier news reports that Anagarika Dharmapala Mawatha and Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha (Green Path) have increasingly become vulnerable to terrorist attacks due to movements of VVIP vehicles along this particular route. It is an important route because vehicles proceeding to and from "Temple Trees" or to the National Defence Media Centre at Kollupitiya, use these roads frequently.

It was just a few months ago, Pakistani High Commissioner for Sri Lanka Bashir Wali Mohamand escaped death miraculously when a trishaw parked along Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha, near a cross road exploded while the High Commissioner's motor convoy was passing along. The explosion killed seven including four army commandos on escort. Although such attacks have been taking place with alarming frequency security on these routes have not been beefed up, where suicide cadres seem to be moving around with relative ease.

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