Nugegoda, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Tamil separatists set off a bomb at a popular department store in a suburb Colombo on Wednesday, killing 17 people in a rare attack targeting civilians, the Sri Lankan military said.
The blast, which came just hours after a suicide bomber tried to kill a Cabinet minister, showed that the Tamil Tiger rebels are still capable of striking deep in government territory despite months of punishing military attacks on their power base in the north.
The attacks came a day after the rebels said that 22 civilians, including 11 schoolchildren, were killed in attacks inside rebel-controlled territory. They blamed the military, but the government denied responsibility for the roadside bombing that killed the children.
Fearing Wednesday's bombings were only the first in a wave of rebel attacks, officials ordered all schools to close for the rest of the week in Western Province, which includes the capital, Colombo.
''The general public should be extra vigilant about their surroundings, especially in trains, buses, crowded areas and even in schools,'' police spokesman Jayantha Wickremarathna said.
The explosion at the four-storey No Limits department store in Nugegoda occurred after a security guard became suspicious of a package left with him for safekeeping and called over a police officer. The package exploded when they tried to open it, a military spokesman, Brig Udaya Nanayakkara, said.
He blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels, who have been fighting since 1983 to carve out a homeland for ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka. The rebels accuse the Sinhalese majority of discrimination.
The blast hit as commuters crowded a nearby bus stop during rush hour. Shattered glass and crumbled concrete lay on the bloodstained sidewalk, and twisted, charred parts of motorcycles and three-wheeled taxis were scattered nearby.
''I was on the top floor of a shoe shop with my wife and child when I heard a big blast and there were glass pieces all over us,'' A Jayasena told AP Television News.
''As we ran away, I saw the entrance of the No Limit shop burning, and in the midst of it, a schoolgirl on the floor trying to get up and then falling back again.''
Jayasena and his daughter suffered minor injuries, while his wife was hospitalised with more serious wounds, he said.
Police and fire-fighters were searching the rubble for more bodies late on Wednesday.
''We know that the attack bears all the hallmarks of the LTTE. It is nobody else but the LTTE,'' said Nanayakkara.
The Tamil Tigers, listed as a terror organisation by the United States and the European Union, have carried out more than 240 suicide bombings and countless other attacks during a war that has seen more than 70,000 people killed.
Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan did not answer calls from The Associated Press seeking comment on Wednesday evening.
The rebels have previously killed civilians in attacks on economic targets like the central bank and on religious shrines. In the past two years, rebel bombers had avoided deliberately targeting civilians, though they have ambushed military convoys at crowded places, causing many civilian deaths.
On Wednesday morning, a suicide bomber blew herself up at Sri Lanka's social services ministry in the heart of Colombo in an unsuccessful attempt to kill the agency's minister, Douglas Devananda, who heads an ethnic Tamil party considered a rival to the rebels, the military said.
Devananda, the target of repeated assassination attempts, was not injured, but the blast killed one of his staff members and injured two others, officials said.
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