By Ranga Sirilal
COLOMBO (Reuters) - At least 45 people were injured when asmall bomb exploded in a busy market area in Sri Lanka'scapital Colombo, officials said.
The blast comes as the military has intensified anoffensive in the island nation's north to surround separatistLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels.
"It was a bomb placed close to an apple vendor in Pettah,"military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.
Military officials speaking on condition of anonymity saidthe blast was triggered by around 100 grams of explosives.
Dr. Anil Jansinghe, a director at Colombo NationalHospital, said 45 people had been admitted, among them two boysand four women. Most of the wounded suffered minor or moderateinjuries, from burns and the blast's shock waves, he said.
"This was definitely the LTTE. They are desperate andtaking civilian targets since they are being defeated on thenorthern battlefront," Nanayakkara said.
The rebels could not be reached for comment. The pro-rebelwebsite www.tamilnet.com described the attack in a storyattributed to the police.
At the scene, there was little evidence of a largeexplosion, but small items sold on wooden stands in the marketwere strewn onto the street and some blood spattered thepavement. The bomb exploded close to two busy bus stops.
Sri Lanka's government officially scrapped a ceasefire withthe Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in January and has vowedto wipe the rebels out by the year's end.
That has prompted increased bombings in Colombo, on SriLanka's west coast, by the rebels, who since 1983 have foughtto create a separate nation for the minority Tamil people.
Three-quarters of Sri Lanka's 21 million people are fromthe Sinhalese ethnic group, which has mainly controlled thelevers of powers in the nation since independence from Britainin 1948.
(Writing by Bryson Hull; Editing by Alex Richardson)