Sri Lankan suicide bomber kills 9

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- A woman suicide bomber killed herself and eight others and wounded more than 15 here yesterday only hours after Prince Charles left Sri Lanka with a plea for peace, the defence ministry said.

The woman, believed to be a member of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), blew herself up as the van in which she was travelling was stopped by the air force for a routine check at Colombo's Slave Island commercial area, police said.

''The woman got off and as she was being checked she embraced an airman and the blast went off,'' a police spokesman said, adding she was wearing an explosives-stuffed jacket.

A defence ministry statement said nine people -- the woman, the van driver and two other men inside, three airmen and two women soldiers -- were killed.

The bomb went off less than six hours after the British heir to the throne left the capital at the end of a four-day visit to mark the 50th anniversary of independence.