1 soldier killed, 6 injured in northeastern Sri Lanka
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-11-25 13:47

One soldier was killed while six others were injured in separate attacks carried out in Sri Lanka's Northern and Eastern provinces, defense officials said Friday.

In the first attack which took place at around 7:15 p.m. local time Thursday (1315 GMT) a bomb was thrown at a military check point in the eastern port town of Trincomalee.

Two soldiers and four civilians suffered injuries in the attack.

In the second attack, grenades were thrown at an Army truck at Manthikai in the northern Jaffna peninsula around 8:20 p.m. local time Thursday (1420 GMT).

Five soldiers were injured two of them seriously. One of the seriously injured soldiers passed away later, military officials said.

The attacks came amid criticism by local and foreign polls observers on the Tamil Tigers for their decision to boycott the November 17 presidential poll.

The European Union polls observers blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels for preventing a large number of minority Tamils from voting.

The LTTE said that they had no faith in both main candidates representing the Sinhala majority and asked the Tamil people to stay away from polls.