2:47pm UK, Friday May 16, 2008

At least nine people have been killed and 95 wounded during a suicide attack in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo.

180 tamil tigers suicide attack

Tamil Tigers have been blamed

Tamil Tiger rebels have been accused of targeting a bus carrying riot police, seven of whom were among the dead.

The bombing happened outside a Buddhist temple in the Fort area of Colombo's commercial district.

It is home to the official residence of the island's president as well as the five-star Hilton Hotel and the twin-tower World Trade Centre office complex.

The attack came hours after air force jets bombed a Tamil Tiger rebel base in the northern jungles, where 27 guerrillas and two government soldiers have been killed in heavy fighting.

A military spokesman said: "Initial details have indicated that a motorbike ridden by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam suicide bomber rammed into the bus carrying policemen."

The attack comes amid a mounting government offensive against Tigers' mini-state in the north of the island.

Government officials pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered truce in January, and has claimed to have inflicted massive casualties on the rebels so far this year.

The Tigers are fighting to carve out a separate Tamil homeland in the north and east of the ethnic Sinhalese-majority island.