LTTE Launches Daylight Attack in Colombo

Big lorry bomb rips through Central Bank

Few terrorist attacks have had a more devastating impact on the island’s tourism industry than the bombing of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in 1996.

Until 2006, the deadliest bombing in the country’s 26 year war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the daring attack in broad daylight set Sri Lanka’s tourism receipts back by 40 percent in a year where later, a bomb on a train claimed 70 civilian lives.

The 31 January attack on the Central Bank was carried out using a lorry loaded with an estimated 200 kilogrammes of high explosives that was rammed through the main gate of the landmark building in Colombo’s business district, which was even at that time a high security zone.

While a commando of armed Tamil Tigers engaged the bank’s security guards in a deadly crossfire that had civilians in the commercial capital’s downtown area scrambling for cover, the driver of the lorry detonated the massive bomb aboard the vehicle – one that had bypassed many cordons and checks en route to its unsuspecting target.

As panicked defenders of the prime banking building traded fire with the attackers, a three-wheeler carrying more LTTE cadre shouldering an RPG into the bargain entered the fray. By the time the military arrived to take the situation in hand, carnage had ensued.

In the end, one LTTE attacker died; and of the remainder of the raiders taken into custody, 11 were formally charged with the bombing – of whom 10 were indicted on an array of counts. The gargantuan blast that ripped through the Central Bank building brought serious structural damage to eight others in the immediate environs that housed a host of mercantile offices, travel agencies and a five-star hotel.

All said, 91 people were killed; an estimated 1,400 variously wounded; and 100 civilians lost their eyesight as a result of shrapnel – especially shards of glass flying high, wide and far.

Though the LTTE denied responsibility – as reported in foreign media – a spate of calls went out to local and international tourism bureaux and travel agencies immediately after the attack, from a group calling itself ‘Ellalan Force’ and asking the world at large to boycott Sri Lanka.

The 31 January attack on the Central Bank was carried out using a lorry loaded with an estimated 200 kilogrammes of high explosives that was rammed through the main gate