YANGON, May 7: Three bomb blasts rocked the capital of Myanmar on Saturday, killing 11 people and wounding 162 others in an attack the government blamed on ethnic rebels and exiled political opponents. It was the latest in a series of explosions in the country, ruled by the military since 1962, and the deadliest in the capital in more than two decades.

The government blamed the attacks on three ethnic rebel groups — the Karen National Union (KNU), Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) and Shan State Army (SSA) — and the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB).

A spokesman for the KNU, Myanmar’s largest armed ethnic group which has fought a decades-old insurgency against the military regime, denied responsibility.

The attacks were the deadliest in Yangon since a 1983 bombing allegedly sponsored by North Korea which killed 11 people during a visit to Myanmar by the South Korean leader. The dead included four South Korean ministers.

The first bomb on Saturday went off at 2:55 p.m. (0725 GMT) at a Thai exhibition at Yangon’s trade centre. It killed three people and wounded more than 10 others, Thai officials said. A second bomb exploded five minutes later at the Junction 8 supermarket, and was followed five minutes later by a third blast at the Dagon Centre shopping mall.—Reuters