Sri Lanka suicide blast kills 12: military

COLOMBO (Reuters) - At least 12 people were killed and 22 injured in a suspected Tamil Tiger rebel suicide blast in northern Sri Lanka on Monday, the military said.

Fighting in Sri Lanka's 25-year-old civil war is now concentrated in the north and the government, which drove the Tigers out of their eastern enclave last year, has vowed to finish off the rebels by the end of the year.

"Twelve people were killed ... from a suicide blast in Vavuniya town," Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said, adding several schoolchildren were also among the wounded.

Nanayakkara said a suicide bomber riding a motorcycle had blown himself in front of a police station in the town.

The civil war reignited in 2006, hitting tourism and deterring some investors in the $27 billion economy, and fighting has intensified since the government annulled a 6-year-old Norwegian-brokered truce in January.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who are fighting for an independent state in the north and east, were not immediately available for comment on the blast.

According to military data, more than 4,000 Tamil Tiger rebels, 460 military personnel and 205 civilians have been killed so far this year.

Independent confirmation of battlefield casualties is not usually possible because of lack of access, and military analysts say both sides exaggerate the other's losses.

Analysts say the Sri Lankan army has the upper hand in the latest phase of the long-running war given superior air power, strength of numbers and swathes of terrain captured in the island's east. But they still see no clear winner on the horizon.

(Reporting by Ranga Sirilal; Editing by Alex Richardson)