The bodies of 15 people, including six children, have been discovered at the site of a fierce overnight gun battle on the east coast of Sri Lanka.
A police spokesman on Saturday said three suspected suicide bombers were among the 15 dead in the shoot-out, which came six days after the killing of 253 people on an Easter Sunday.
The three men set off explosives, also killing three women and six children, inside what was believed to a safe house near the eastern town of Kalmunai on Friday night.
Military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said in a statement that the fighters were suspected members of the domestic group, National Thowheed Jamath, which has been blamed for last Sunday’s attacks.
Police have arrested at least 76 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, in their investigations so far. Twenty were arrested in the past 24 hours alone.
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