A Sri Lankan military spokesman confirmed that the attack took place near the town of Dambulla, about 150 kilometres (90 miles) northeast of the capital, Colombo. He claimed members of the Tamil Tigers crashed a small truck loaded with explosives into a convoy of military buses. He said the sailors were going on leave and were not armed.

A Sri Lankan government spokesman, described the attack as "inhuman".

"we need to defeat this terrorism and then we will definitely work on that to defeat the terrorism and we request all peace loving people, nationally, internationally, to join hands with us to defeat this menace, cancerous menace of terrorism, which is globally and particularly in Sri Lanka at the moment.'"

The attack came less than two weeks before the proposed direct talks between the government and the Tamil Tigers .

More than 64,000 were killed in Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict from the 1980s to 2002 when Norwegian peacebrokers organised a ceasefire agreement between the two parties.