Colombo - Three sailors and four rebels were killed Tuesday when Tamil separatist guerillas and the Navy clashed on an island off north-western Sri Lanka, a military spokesman said.

The rebels arrived in six boats and mounted an attack on a Navy guard point at Erukkalampiddi on Mannar island, 320 kilometres north of Colombo, he said. Sailors fought back, repelled the attack and also sought air support to attack the fleeing rebels, the spokesman said.

The incident came as government troops pushed further into rebel-controlled areas in the Mannar district, which includes the island, in military operations that have lasted more than six months.

Colombo  - At least 54 persons arebeing held in connection with two bomb attacks in Sri Lanka's capital and the central part of the country in which 24 people died on Friday, police said Saturday.

Fifty-two were detained on the outskirts of Colombo where a claymore mine blew up a bus, killing 22 passengers and injuring 60.

Most of them were Tamil University students who were in a nearby hostel when the explosion took place at Katubedda, 10 kilometres south of the capital.

Two persons were being questioned over a second incident in the Polgolla area, 125 kilometres east Colombo, where two bus passengers died and 20 were injured after a bomb went off inside the vehicle.

Colombo, June 6 : At least 20 people have been killed and 40 injured in a bomb explosion in a bus in Colombo.

Colombo, June 4 : The death toll from flo

Colombo  - Security in passenger trains was intensified in Sri Lanka Wednesday after 24 people were injured in an explosion triggered on a railway line as a passenger train passed by the outskirts

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