TIMELINE: Major bombings in Sri Lanka blamed on Tamil Tigers

(Reuters) -- Sri Lankan authorities blamed a Monday suicide blast in an ancient tourist town which killed at least 26 people, including a popular retired army general who had turned to politics, on the Tamil Tiger rebels.

The Tigers are credited with perfecting the suicide bomb as a weapon in a 25-year war against Sri Lanka's government, and have killed hundreds including top politicians in bombings, suicide or otherwise. Here are some major bombings blamed on them:

April 1987 - Car bomb explodes at Colombo central bus station, killing 113 people and wounding scores.

April 1989 - Car bomb explodes in the eastern port of Trincomalee, killing 51 people shopping for traditional new year.

March 1991: Defense Minister Ranjan Wijeratne is among 19 killed when a car bomb is detonated in Colombo.

May 1991 - Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi is killed in southern India by a suspected LTTE suicide bomber.

November 1992 - Navy chief Clancey Fernando is killed in a suicide bombing in Colombo.

May 1993 - President Ranasinghe Premadasa and 23 others are killed by a suicide bomber in Colombo.

October 1994 - Presidential candidate Gamini Dissanayake is one of 52 killed in a bomb blast at a Colombo election rally.

January 1996 - A truck filled with explosives rams into the Central Bank building in Colombo, killing up to 100 people and wounding 1,400.

July 1996 - Two bomb blasts on a rush-hour commuter train kill 57 people and wound more than 250.

December 1999 - President Chandrika Kumaratunga is wounded in an attempted assassination by a suicide bomber; at least 34 are killed in two explosions. She lost an eye.

June 2000 - Industrial Development Minister C.V. Gunaratne and 21 others are killed in a suicide bomb blast in Colombo.

April 2006 - Army Commander Major General Sarath Fonseka is badly hurt in an abortive suicide attack on Army HQ in Colombo.

June 2006 - Army Deputy Chief of Staff Parami Kulatunga killed as suicide bomber rams a motorcycle laden with explosives into his vehicle outside Colombo.

June 2006 - A mine attack on a civilian bus in the central district of Anuradhapura kills 64.