Female suicide bomber kills 24 in Sri Lanka

The bombing was the first major suicide attack in Sri Lanka in more than a month and led to fears the Tamil Tiger separatists boxed in by the military and on the verge of defeat will increasingly turn to guerrilla warfare in their battle against government forces.Following a string of victories, the military backed the rebels into a small strip of land on the northeastern coast, where the Red Cross estimates 250,000 civilians are also trapped.

The military has accused the rebels of holding the civilians as human shields and called for noncombatants to flee to government-controlled areas. The rebels have accused the government of indiscriminately shelling the war zone, leading to increasing civilian casualties.On Monday morning, more than 800 civilians had crossed the front lines and were being searched by soldiers before being sent to camps farther south, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.

When the attacker was frisked, she set off the bomb she was wearing, killing 24 people and injuring 20 others, he said."The LTTE is now desperate because they don't have any control over the civilians now," Nanayakkara said, calling the rebels by the initials of their formal name, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. "They wanted to stop these people coming in."

The attack appeared aimed at one of the military's weak points, the processing of the masses of civilians trying to flee the area. It also highlighted concerns that the rebels were trying to blend in with the civilian population, so they can fight on using insurgent tactics.