COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Reuters) — A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber killed Sri Lanka’s highway minister and at least 13 other people attending a marathon race near the capital, Colombo, on Sunday.

Television images showed a ball of fire roaring toward the minister, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, as he signaled the start of the race. K. A. Karunarathne, a former top marathon runner, was among the dead.

About 100 people, some of them runners in the race, were wounded. Mr. Fernandopulle, 55, was a member of the government negotiating team in failed peace talks with the Tamil Tiger rebels two years ago.

“The death toll has gone up to 15, including the suicide bomber,” said Laksman Hulugalla, director general of the Media Center for National Security. “Eleven bodies were identified and there are parts of bodies from another 4 people.”

A bomb squad official, speaking at the scene on the condition of anonymity, said, “It’s a suicide attack, definitely” by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the rebel group.

The official said the bomb was very close to the minister and contained a large quantity of explosives.

Mr. Fernandopulle was the second minister to be killed this year. The minister for nation building, D. M. Dassanayake, died Jan. 8 in a roadside blast in the same area.

The Sri Lankan military has carried out an offensive on northern rebel strongholds in which at least 100 rebel fighters were killed last week, the military said.

The rebels have in the past hit back with bombings in Colombo and in the relatively peaceful southern part of the island when they have come under military pressure in the north and east.

Sunday’s attack was in Weliveriya, 19 miles from Colombo.

“I heard an explosion and with that saw a fireball going toward the minister as he was prepared to signal the race,” a witness said. “After that I saw people lying in pools of blood.”

The Tamil Tigers, also known as L.T.T.E., are fighting for an independent state in the northern and eastern part of the island in a 25-year civil war that has killed an estimated 70,000 people.

“The assassination of such a committed democrat once again shows the total contempt of the L.T.T.E. to the democratic process, and its unquestioned commitment to violence and terror to achieve its narrow and limited objectives, that are far removed from the interests of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka,” President Mahinda Rajapakse said in a statement.

The rebel group, which usually denies any involvement in such attacks, was not immediately available for comment.

In January the government called off a tattered 2002 cease-fire, accusing the rebels of using it to regroup and rearm, and vowed to fight them militarily.

Analysts say the military has the upper hand in the latest phase of the long war, given its superior air power, strength of numbers and the land captured in the eastern part of the island. But they still see no clear winner on the horizon.

Lakshman Kadirgamar, a foreign minister, was the most senior government leader to be killed in recent years. He was shot dead at his home in Colombo by a suspected Tamil Tiger sniper in August 2005.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company