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The following is the chronology of major suicide attacks by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which is waging a campaign for an independent homeland in Sri Lanka's north and east:

Year 2001

• July 24: Sri Lanka's only international airport and the main air base north of Colombo attacked. Several planes destroyed.

  Year 2000
  

• Oct 23: Suicide bombers ram four boats packed with explosives and sink a navy gunboat and a troop carrier berthed at Trincomalee naval harbour.
  
• Oct 19: Suicide bomber detonates explosives strapped to his body outside the main Town Hall in Colombo, killing himself and wounding at least 19 others.
  
• Oct 5: Suicide bomber targets a ruling party meeting in north-central Sri Lanka, killing 10 people.
  
• Oct 2: Suicide bomber detonates a bomb, killing himself and 23 others ahead of parliamentary elections.
  
• Sep 15: Suicide bomber detonates explosives strapped to his body while he is searched outside a Colombo hospital. Seven die.
  
• June 26: Tamil Tigers admit deploying six suicide cadres to ram and sink merchant vessel M V Mercs Uhana, off the island's northern coast. Seven crew members die.
  
• June 7: Suicide bomber assassinates industries minister C V Gooneratne, killing 25 and injuring 27.
  
• June 5: A navy gunboat is sunk by suicide bombers, leaving five dead in the country's north.
  
• Mar 10: An attack along the Ceremonial Drive to Parliament kills at least 23 people, including three policemen.
  
• Mar 2: A woman suicide bomber detonates explosives near a vehicle carrying Piyal Abeysekara, the military commander in northeast Trincomalee. Abeysekara escapes unhurt.
  
• Jan 5: Woman suicide bomber detonates explosives strapped to her body outside the office of Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike. 12 die.

  Year 1999
  

• Dec 18: President Chandrika Kumaratunga is wounded and 38 are killed in two separate attacks on election rallies.
  
• July 29: Moderate Tamil politician Neelan Thiruchelvam killed by a suicide bomber in Colombo's Cinnamon Gardens diplomatic quarter.

  Year 1998
  

• Jan 25: Suicide bombers devastate the country's holiest Buddhist shrine in the town of Kandy, killing 16.

  Year 1997
  

• Oct 15: Suicide bombers drive a truck packed with a large quantity of explosives and devastate the twin-tower World Trade Centre building, killing 18.

  Year 1996
  

• Jan 31: A suicide bomber drives a truck packed with explosives destroying the Central Bank in Colombo, killing 91 and wounding 1,400.

  Year 1995
  

• Apr 19: Tamil Tiger suicide bombers destroy two navy gunboats at Trincomalee port, killing 18 sailors.

  Year 1994
  

• Oct 24: Opposition leader Gamini Dissanayake and 56 others killed by a suicide bomber in Colombo.

  Year 1993
  

• May 1: President Ranasinghe Premadasa and 23 others killed by a suicide bomber in Colombo.

  Year 1992
  

• Nov 16: Navy chief Clancy Fernando killed in a suicide bombing outside Taj Samudra Hotel in Colombo.

  Year 1991
  

• June 22: A suicide bomber drives a truck packed with explosives into the military joint operations headquarters in Colombo, killing 21 and wounding 114.
  
• May 21: Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi killed at a meeting in southern India.
  
• Mar 2: Car bomb detonated in Colombo. Defence minister Ranjan Wijeratne among 19 killed.

  Year 1987
  

• July 5: The LTTE carries out its first suicide bombing, killing 40 troops in Jaffna in the north of the country.