Associated Press

Yangon, May 8:

Soldiers and police sealed off two supermarkets and a convention centre today in the capital of Myanmar, where a series of bomb explosions blamed on rebels and a dissident group killed at least 11 people and wounded 162 others.

City residents were fearful of more explosions after the blasts, which occurred over a

10-minute period yesterday at the exhibition centre in western Yangon, and then at two upscale City Mart supermarkets in the northern and northwestern sections of the city.

The junta blamed ethnic rebel groups such as the Karen National Union and the Shan State Army and a self-proclaimed government-in-exile called the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma for the attacks.

State television said “terrorists” trying to disrupt “stab-ility and tranquility” were responsible.

“We totally reject this accusation by the military,” Sann Aung, an NCGUB minister, told The Associated Press in Bangkok by telephone.

“We’re never involved in terrorism and also we are never involved in bomb blasts.”