A senior Sri Lankan army general has been killed in an explosion carried out by a suspected suicide bomber east of the capital.
Major-General Parami Kulatunga, the army's deputy chief of staff, was travelling to a military base when a motorcyclist approached his convoy and rammed into his vehicle around 20km from Colombo.
Two other soldiers and one civilian were also killed in the blast.
The attack comes on the heels of a rash of ambushes and military clashes that have killed around 700 people, half of them civilians, so far this year.
Many fear the violence could reignite a two-decade civil war with Tamil Tiger rebels.
