More than 10 people were killed today in a suspected suicide bombing by a Tamil Tiger in southern Sri Lanka.

A government minister was among more than 20 people injured in the blast at a mosque near the town of Matara, 100 miles south of the capital, Colombo.

The Sri Lankan defence ministry immediately announced that the attack was by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber.

The blast was thought to have targeted ministers attending a ceremony at the mosque. Mahinda Wijesekara, Sri Lanka's minister for post and telecommunications, was injured.

Sri Lanka's oil minister, AHM Fowzie, who was at the site, said the bomber targeted the officials as they walked in a procession toward the mosque.

"Six ministers were there and terrorists used this opportunity to target us. Only one minister got injured. Seven bodies have been found at the spot," he said.

The Tamil Tigers have fought Sri Lanka's ruling Sinhalese since 1983 to gain an independent state for the Tamil minority in the north and east of the country, which has suffered decades of being marginalised by the government. More than 70,000 people have been killed.

Fighting has escalated in recent months as the military routed the rebels from most of their de facto state in the north and cornered them in a narrow strip along the north-eastern coast, trapping tens of thousands of civilians.

The suicide bomber struck during a ceremony to mark Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi, the anniversary of the birth of Mohammed. The country's air force said it dispatched a helicopter to airlift the critically wounded back to Colombo.

The attack came after the Tamil Tigers' former deputy leader was made a government minister. Vinyagamoorthi Muralitharan, known as Colonel Karuna before splitting from the Tigers in 2004, was yesterday sworn in as a non-cabinet minister for national integration and reconciliation.

His defection was seen as a major setback to the Tamil Tigers and contributed to their loss of control of the east in 2007.

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