Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa condemned Friday the bus attack carried out Thursday by suspected Tamil Tigers in the country's northern district of Kebitigollewa that killed 64 civilians and injured 87.

In his message of condolence sent to the families of the victims of the bomb attack, Rajapaksa said he "never expect such violence in the name of a peoples' liberation."

"The government and myself, together with the entire world community have totally condemned this savage act of the LTTE ( Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), brutally killing unarmed innocent people," said the president.

However, Rajapaksa said the government is still committed to negotiated settlement to the country's ethnic issue.

"Whatever savage and barbaric acts the LTTE may indulge in, we will never allow our search for peace to be derailed," he said.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's air force continued bombing Tamil rebel positions for the second day running on Friday.

"We have taken known LTTE positions," said military spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe.

The defense sources said that LTTE positions in Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi had been targeted from 6 a.m. (0030 GMT) Friday .

The government on Thursday carried out limited air attacks on LTTE positions after the rebels triggered the Claymore mine blast.

The incident blamed on the Tigers was the worst since the government and the LTTE entered the February 2002 ceasefire agreement.

The government said the LTTE was trying to create an ethnic backlash in the south of the country by targeting the Sinhalese civilians.

The Tigers was also condemned by the international community for the attack.

However, the LTTE denied any responsibility and blamed the security forces for killing the civilians in order to implicate the rebels in the attack.

They accused the government troops of killing Tamil civilians in the Northern and Eastern provinces, the theater of a bitter ethnic separatist war since the mid 1980s.

In late April the government launched similar air raids on rebel positions after the LTTE made an attempt to assassinate the country's Army Commander Sarath Fonseka.

Source: Xinhua