In the News Today

I don't know if any of you have read what has been going on in Sri Lanka, but wanted to update you on the situation over here. I am pasting some of an article I found on Yahoo News....


Bus blast kills 64, Sri Lanka hits back with air, sea and land attacks
Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels blew up a packed bus, killing 64 passengers, including 15 children, in the deadliest attack on civilians in Sri Lanka for 10 years, the military said.

The government hit back at suspected Tamil Tiger positions across the island's embattled northeast using supersonic jets, naval gunboats and artillery, military spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said in Colombo.

The bus crowded with villagers was heading to this village of Kebitigollewa, in the ethnic Sinhalese North-Central province, when it was hit by two powerful blasts on Thursday around four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the town.

Survivors said about 160 to 170 passengers had been travelling in the bus meant for 60 passengers when the Claymore mines exploded, toppling the vehicle and sending it crashing along the roadway.

The attack was the worst on civilians since the July 1996 bombing of a train in the capital Colombo which killed 70 people. The military blamed Thursday's bombing on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"The air, sea and ground attacks were carried out as a deterrent," Samarasinghe said in Colombo, 260 kilometres (162 miles) south of here. "We have taken known LTTE targets."

The rebels denied involvement and said the blast was aimed at discrediting them.
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"This is not a declaration of war but an act of terrorism. As far as the peace process and the ceasefire agreement are concerned, they are still on, but we have to re-look at it seriously in a proper context," Rambukwella said, referring to a shaky truce in place since 2002.

The separatists also condemned the blast.

"The LTTE condemns this attack on the civilian bus," they said in a statement. "Directly targeting civilians, as the Kebitigollewa Claymore attack has, cannot be justified under any circumstances."

A Finnish representative of the Nordic observer mission said the blast was retaliation by the Tigers for recent government attacks.

"This is a retaliation for the mine attacks that killed a number of people in the zones controlled by the (rebel) Tamils. It seems that the Tamil Tigers wanted to avenge these acts with a bigger attack," Jouni Suninen, the head of the regional office of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission in Vavuniya, told Finnish news agency STT.

The spiralling violence renewed fears that the island is sliding back to full-scale war after peace broker Norway last week failed to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Colombo and the LTTE.

A spate of recent bomb attacks have targeted security forces as well as civilians and have been officially blamed on the guerrillas, who are waging a campaign for independence.

A surge in violence has left at least 760 people killed since December, according to official figures.

I am not putting this up to scare anyone. Colombo is quite safe, and Jesse & I don't feel at all in harms way. I am putting it up to let you know what people here are dealing with. This country desperately needs prayer. Please join us in praying for this situation, for the families that have lost loved ones, both the victims on the bus, and also the victims that have now been killed b/c of the air strikes from the government. There have been tries of peace talks, but they have failed thus far. The other thing that Jesse has noticed is that with the possibility of a war people here are kind of in a state of limbo. It is hard for people to really talk to Jesse about some issues, b/c there might be a much more immediate problem to have to deal with (the war) than the things Jesse is trying to work on. We are keeping close tabs to what is going on here, and will keep you all updated.