A suicide bomber killed at least 27 people, including a retired army chief of staff, and injured 80 others in northern Sri Lanka this morning as the army closed in on the Tamil Tiger rebels' jungle headquarters.

Police said the bomber struck during the opening of a new office for the centre-right opposition United National Party (UNP) in the town of Anuradhapura, a popular tourist site 124 miles north of the capital, Colombo.

Anuradhapura is home to some of Sri Lankan Buddhism's holiest sites but is also a major staging post for military supplies heading north.

Among those killed was retired General Janaka Perera, who played a key role in the government's campaign against the Tigers until he stepped down as chief of staff in 2001 after being passed over for promotion to army commander.

He is credited with some of the army's biggest victories over the Tigers, including a 1996 battle in which 200 rebels were killed with the loss of just one soldier, and preventing the rebels from over-running Jaffna in 2000.

After retiring from the army, he served briefly as High Commissioner to Australia and Ambassador to Indonesia before becoming head of the UNP in Northern Province and running unsuccessfully to be chief minister of the province in August.

His wife was also killed in today's attack, police said, along with several other members of the UNP, which advocates a negotiated settlement with the Tigers.

The government blamed the attack on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as the Tigers are formally known.

The group, banned by the US, EU and UN as a terrorist organisation, has assassinated many politicians in its 25-year struggle to establish an independent Tamil homeland in northern and eastern Sri Lanka.

However, the UNP said it was not sure who was responsible, adding that General Perera had been threatened by the Tigers and by government allies, including a breakaway Tiger faction that became a political party last year.

"The government had opened up the opportunities to kill him by not providing security despite repeated requests," Tissa Attanayake, the UNP's General Secretary, told reporters.

"He was a prominent general who fought against LTTE and is a popular character."

There was no immediate response from the Tigers, who usually deny involvement in any suicide attacks that kill civilians.

The Tigers' communications lines have been cut for several weeks since the army launched a push towards Kilinochchi, the rebels' main base, vowing to capture it before the end of the year.

The army said yesterday that it was just over one mile from the outer limits of Kilinochchi -- where rebels and visiting diplomats met during a Norway-brokered truce that was officially called off in January.

It is impossible to verify the army's claims as most independent observers and reporters are barred from the conflict zone.

However, foreign aid workers who evacuated the northern region three weeks ago said most residents of Kilinochchi had fled as the fighting moved closer.

Many analysts say the army may indeed be on the point of defeating the Tigers, at least as a conventional military force with their own air and naval wings and as a parallel administration in northern Sri Lanka.

The question, they say, is whether the Tigers will be able to regroup as a guerrilla force and to continue a conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people since it started in 1983.

The Tigers say they are fighting for a homeland to protect Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil minority, which is mostly Hindu, from discrimination by the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese majority.

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