The Ceylon News

Authorities have buried 41 bodies of suspected Tiger rebels killed in the latest fighting Sri Lankan troops claim to have established total control over the northern peninsula of Jaffna after flushing out the last remaining pockets of rebel resistance. Government soldiers captured Chundikkulam village, a final strip of Tamil Tiger rebel-held land on Wednesday, brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, a military spokesman, said. Nanayakkara said that all of Jaffna was now secured after the capture of Chundikkulam, where the rebels had several Sea Tiger bases. There was no comment from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but their hold on the peninsula began crumbling last week after troops took Elephant Pass, the causeway linking Jaffna with the Sri Lankan mainland. The Jaffna peninsula has long been seen as the symbolic heart of a 25-year-old separatist insurgency on the island. Flight of civilians Military officials said about 1,700 Tamil civilians had sought shelter with government forces after escaping from the remaining rebel-held areas of the island's north-east. "In the past two weeks a total of 1,707 civilians have crossed into government-held areas in the north," a military official said, adding that the authorities were arranging emergency relief for them. Authorities said that they had buried 41 bodies of suspected Tiger rebels killed by security forces in the latest fighting. The burials came as warplanes bombed and destroyed two LTTE artillery guns, the defence ministry said. It was not clear how many artillery pieces the Tigers still had. The air force had stepped up raids against the remaining LTTE strong points in the island's north on Tuesday with at least 10 bombing sorties, a ministry spokesman said. Fighting was also reported around guerrilla-controlled Mullaittivu district. The LTTE has not commented on the latest fighting, but has admitted losing ground in recent weeks, including in the town of Kilinochchi, which they used as their political base for nearly a decade.

The flag of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is seen over the body of LTTE leader Ramanan during his funeral in Tamil rebel controlled village of Kannankudha in Batticoloa, about 225 kilometers (139 miles) northeast of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, May 24, 2006. Senior officials, analysts, diplomats and former military officers said the government's new commitment to the fight coupled with a string of miscalculations by the Tamil Tigers has brought one of the world's most sophisticated rebel groups to the brink of defeat.Sri Lankan soldiers patrol in Jaffna, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) northeast of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, June 21, 2006. Senior officials, analysts, diplomats and former military officers said the government's new commitment to the fight coupled with a string of miscalculations by the Tamil Tigers has brought one of the world's most sophisticated rebel groups to the brink of defeat


Sri Lankan soldiers are seen walking to a newly built bunker of the Sri Lankan army's forward defense line in Muhumalai, about 280 kilometers (174 miles) north of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006. Senior officials, analysts, diplomats and former military officers said the government's new commitment to the fight coupled with a string of miscalculations by the Tamil Tigers has brought one of the world's most sophisticated rebel groups to the brink of defeat.


The flag of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is seen over the body of LTTE leader Ramanan during his funeral in Tamil rebel controlled village of Kannankudha in Batticoloa, about 225 kilometers (139 miles) northeast of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, May 24, 2006. Senior officials, analysts, diplomats and former military officers said the government's new commitment to the fight coupled with a string of miscalculations by the Tamil Tigers has brought one of the world's most sophisticated rebel groups to the brink of defeat.

Tamil Tiger fighters take positions as they rehearse to break through outer defense lines of a military camp, at a training camp in an undisclosed location in Tiger controlled territory, north east of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Friday, July 13, 2007. Senior officials, analysts, diplomats and former military officers said the government's new commitment to the fight coupled with a string of miscalculations by the Tamil Tigers has brought one of the world's most sophisticated rebel groups to the brink of defeat






Sri Lankan soldiers fire guns aiming at Tamil rebel positions in Welioya battle front, about 240 kilometers (149 miles)north east of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, March 24, 2008. Senior officials, analysts, diplomats and former military officers said the government's new commitment to the fight coupled with a string of miscalculations by the Tamil Tigers has brought one of the world's most sophisticated rebel groups to the brink of defeat

A Sri Lankan army soldier signals his colleagues at a defence line in Paranthan December 23, 2008. Sri Lanka's president said its troops captured the separatist Tamil Tigers' headquarters town of Kilinochchi on January 2, 2009, but within an hour of the announcement a suspected suicide bomber killed at least two people in the capital. Troops fought their way into the Tiger stronghold of Kilinochchi deep in the north, in one of the biggest blows for the rebels in years. Details of casualties from the fighting were not immediately available. Picture taken December 23, 2008.

Tamil Tigers claimed on Wednesday killing 130 government troops and wounding 300 others during heavy fighting in northern Sri Lanka.

Tuesday's battle was reported on the rebel-linked Web site TamilNet.com and comes a day after the government claimed to have killed 120 rebels, while losing 20 of its own troops.

In the past, both sides have exaggerated their accounts of military operations.

Government forces have engaged rebels in heavy fighting for months in the Kilinochchi region, once the center of political power for the Tamil Tigers. The 25-year civil war between ethnic Tamil separatists and the Sri Lankan government has left more than 65,000 people dead.

The Tamil Tigers were founded in 1976, and the U.S. State Department designated the group a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. The rebels, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), are fighting for the creation of an independent nation, citing discrimination by the country's Sinhalese majority.

Social Services and Social Welfare Minister Douglas Devananda said that the ban on the LTTE was timely. But had the Government proscribed it earlier, a number of precious lives could have been saved and large scale destruction of public property averted.

He told The Island that apart from several atrocities committed during the past two decades the LTTE had used 200,000 innocent civilians as human shields and it was an unpardonable crime. The LTTE was proscribed at a time when it was engaged in killing those with alternate ideas. They were people who refused to pay extortion money and did not want to support them, he said.

The Tiger terrorists were taking people for a ride on the pretext of fighting for their rights. The proscription could be described as an act of redeeming the Tamil people from the inhuman cruelties inflicted on them by the Tigers. Although some had said that the proscription of the LTTE was a tactic adopted by the Government to circumvent discussions with them, he was of a different view because the LTTE had never made a genuine attempt to bring a political solution for the Tamil people, Devananda said.

The LTTE has a history of having aborted several opportunities for arriving at a political solution to the problems of Tamils.

They used those opportunities to increase their armaments and never worked for the well-being of Tamil people. It was crystal clear that the aspirations of the Tamil people could never be achieved through the LTTE, he said.

Colombo: The Sri Lankan Army Chief has rubbished suggestions that the LTTE has made "strategic" retreat from its strongholds, stressing that the "fighting machine" of the Tamil Tigers is now "constrained". "No fighting force like the LTTE has ever withdrawn from 95 percent of the land mass it occupied as a strategic move," Sarath Fonseka said. The Army chief underlined that the LTTE not only lost 95 percent of the land it held but also lost within the last one year 8,000 cadres out of whom the Sri Lanka military was aware of the identity of 4,000. Lankan forces seize Muhamalai defence line The LTTE "fighting machine" is constrained to a triangular area in two sides of which are about 40 kilometers each in the Mullaittivu area roughly, Fonseka told the state-owned Independent Television Network (ITN). "It is a clear defeat where they lose at least one square kilometer daily until they are flushed out finally in a short period of time. Every day the army also discovered 5 to 7 corpses of the LTTE at the war front," the army commander was quoted as saying by the Defence Ministry website. Tamil Tigers, now virtually on the run, have claimed that they still retained the capability to seize back LTTE's de-facto capital of Killinochchi. Emerging after the devastating defeat at the hands of Lankan Army, LTTE political chief B Nadesan said "Kilinochchi town was captured more than once by the Sri Lanka military earlier." LTTE will win war ultimately, says Vaiko "Similarly, we have also re-captured the town on earlier occasions, effectively bringing the town under our control to serve the administrative and infrastructure needs," Nadesan was quoted by pro-LTTE website Tamilnet. Army chief Fonseka stressed that the LTTE took advantage of the ceasefire period to raise its fighter force by over four times besides enhancing its weapon power during the period.

COLOMBO - The Sri Lankan military says it has captured an important Tamil Tiger base on the edge of the Jaffna Peninsula.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said troops moving southward from the peninsula seized the base at Pallai last night. Small pockets of rebel fighters battled the troops before withdrawing to their base at Elephant Pass.

Earlier, the Sri Lankan Government has officially outlawed the rebel group, ruling out the possibility of restarting peace talks any time soon to end a quarter-century of civil war.

The move puts even more pressure on the separatist guerrillas, who suffered a major blow when the Sri Lankan military captured their de facto capital last week and promised to finish off the rebels within weeks.

The guerrillas had ignored an ultimatum to allow hundreds of thousands of civilians living in rebel-held areas to leave, so the Cabinet unanimously agreed to the ban, Cabinet minister Maithripala Sirisena said.

The Government and international rights groups have accused the Tamil Tigers of

using civilians as human shields against the military offensive that has shrunk their territory on this island off southern India to a small slice of jungle.

The rebels were not available for comment; most communications in their region have been severed in the fighting. While the ban was little more than a formality, it was seen as a symbolic rejection of any possible rapprochement.

The rebels have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, who have suffered decades of marginalisation by governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority.

The Tamil Tigers had long been outlawed in Sri Lanka, but the Government lifted the ban in 2002 when the sides agreed to a ceasefire. The deal collapsed amid new fighting three years ago.

CHENNAI: While urging the Indian government to impress upon Colombo “to pursue a political solution of the Tamil question so that full autonomy for the Tamil speaking area is provided within a united Sri Lanka,” CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday said his party would not support the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in any manner.

“We make a distinction between the LTTE, whose record we know very well and who have not been playing any positive role in getting a solution, and the overall issue of the Tamil people and their just cause,” he told journalists here.

The Centre should also take immediate measures to see that the lives of civilians and their properties were protected and that essential commodities reached them.

Asked whether he was demanding a ceasefire, Mr. Karat said he would like military hostilities to cease. “But it could not be effected by us [India]. We are not a party to the conflict. Neither are we the mediating force now. But definitely the Government of India can use its diplomatic and political channels and impress upon the Sri Lankan government that priority should be given for a political settlement. And according to our view there is no military solution to the problem.”

To a question on the possibilities of achieving a political solution without the LTTE, he pointed to the earlier efforts made without its participation.

“Already there is an all-party mechanism. Many proposals have already been put up before it. I am sure if there is a reasonable basis of providing for a framework of devolution of power and autonomy, many sections of the Tamil people will rally behind that. So I am saying tackle the LTTE not just militarily. Tackle it politically also,” he stressed.

“I am sure there are forces within Sri Lanka which can work towards a meaningful solution by providing for autonomy. All sorts of proposals are there. But what we are saying is that if the Government of Sri Lanka pushes for it seriously, something can come out of it.”

Mr. Karat said some progress could be made if the Centre took effective measures to achieve what his party advocated.

The fighting in the north has driven thousands of people from their homes

Aid organisations say a major humanitarian crisis is unfolding in northern Sri Lanka where government forces are engaged in fierce fighting with Tamil Tiger rebels.

Around 350,000 Tamil civilians are crammed into the area where fighting is taking place, forcing them to endure heavy bombardments and acute food shortages.

Foreign journalists are prevented from entering the conflict zone, but Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive pictures showing civilians fleeing the fighting as buildings burn and craters from heavy shelling pockmark the earth.

'Pauperized'

"We lost everything, our property and all," one fleeing civilian told Al Jazeera. "It was the same at the last place we were staying, we lost everything there too."

"We don't have any property now, we have lost everything. We are now worse than before, we don't have anything to eat."

Civilians say they have lost everything

Civilians say they have lost everything
The town of Mullaittivu in Sri Lanka's northeast is thought to be the last stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who have been battling government forces for 25 years, hoping to obtain an independent homeland for the country's ethnic Tamils.

Aid agencies say at least 30 people are being either killed or wounded daily in the violence, and getting food and emergency medical supplies to the area is also becoming impossible.

"For the last five days for example, there has been no aid that has reached this population at all because of the fighting," Paul Castella, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Sri Lanka, told Al Jazeera.

He said they have been unable to establish safe passage into the region for aid convoys, although negotiations were taking place to open a so-called humanitarian corridor.

"And its not just about aid or assistance, but also about healthcare for the sick and the wounded," Castella said. "As you know, a number of hospitals had to be evacuated because of the moving frontline."

Two hospitals are reported to have been bombed so far, and one aid group claims civilians are being targeted.

'Genocide'

Selvamalar Ayadurai, who runs an aid organisation helping civilians in Sri Lanka's north, says the term genocide may be justified.

"They use the term genocide - it may be right because the definition for genocide is a systematic and planned destruction of a social, racial or political group. So this is the destruction of a racial group, which are the Tamils of northern Sri Lanka," she told Al Jazeera.

Sri Lankan government forces have achieved a string of victories against the Tigers in recent weeks.

The government said a week ago that it had captured the strategic Elephant pass, which links the northern Jaffna peninsula to the mainland, for the first time since April 2000.

And on January 2, the Sri Lankan flag was raised over Kilinochchi, a city that had been considered the Tamil Tigers' de facto capital.

The conflict in Sri Lanka has raged since 1972 and about 70,000 people are thought to have been killed till date.

The Associated Press

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Sri Lankan forces sweeping down from the north captured an important Tamil Tiger base on the Jaffna peninsula Thursday, further boxing in the retreating rebel group, the military said.

The capture of Pallai on the narrow isthmus connecting Jaffna with the rest of the island nation came after the rebels reportedly withdrew much of their artillery and heavy weaponry from the peninsula into their jungle strongholds to the south.

Analysts said the group appeared to be sacrificing its bases on the peninsula and consolidating its forces in the Mullaittivu area, where it will likely make a stand against the government.

The rebels were not available for comment Wednesday; most communications in their region have been severed. Independent accounts of the fighting were not available because the government has barred journalists and foreign aid groups from the war zone.

The new fighting kept up the pressure on the beleaguered rebels a day after the government officially banned the group, ruling out the resumption of any peace efforts in the foreseeable future.

Sri Lankan forces have broken through the rebels' defenses in recent months, seizing huge chunks of rebel-held lands, capturing their administrative capital of Kilinochchi and trapping the insurgents in a tiny section of the northeast.

Government officials say they aim to crush the group and end this Indian Ocean island nation's 25-year-old civil war.

For more than a decade, the rebels have run a de facto state, squeezed between the government-held Jaffna peninsula -- the northernmost point in the country -- and the rest of the island to the south.

While government troops pushed deep into rebel territory from the south, troops in the Jaffna peninsula had been unable to break open the Tamil Tigers' heavily fortified northern lines until earlier this week when they overran the front at Muhamalai.

Those force pushed southward about five kilometres, capturing Pallai, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.

"There have been small pockets of (rebels) and they have engaged moving troops, but after giving final resistance they moved toward Elephant Pass," he said, referring to a strategic rebel base on the southern point of the isthmus.

In other fighting, air force jets attacked two rebel boats that were camouflaged and anchored in a lagoon in the north Thursday morning after pounding a group of rebels late Wednesday who appeared to be working to construct new defense fortifications.

The attacks came after the Cabinet voted unanimously Wednesday night to officially outlaw the Tamil Tigers, ruling out the possibility of restarting peace talks anytime soon.

The decision followed the rebels' rejection of a government ultimatum to allow hundreds of thousands of civilians living in rebel-held areas to leave, Cabinet minister Maithripala Sirisena said.

The government and international rights groups have accused the Tamil Tigers of holding civilians as human shields against the military offensive. The rebels deny the charge.

Government officials already have vowed to destroy the rebel group, so while Wednesday's ban was little more than a formality, it was seen as a symbolic rejection of any possible rapprochement.

The rebels have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, who have suffered decades of marginalization by governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority. The conflict has killed more than 70,000 people.

The Tamil Tigers have been outlawed before, but the government lifted the ban in 2002 when the sides agreed to a cease-fire. The deal collapsed amid new fighting three years ago.

Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Sri Lankan fighter jets attacked a jungle base used by the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, as the military tries to defeat the rebel group after capturing its political base earlier this month.

Velupillai Prabhakaran is “running short of safe houses and escape routes,” the Defense Ministry said on its Web site. Soldiers are closing in on the last LTTE bastions at Puthukkudiyirippu and Mullaitivu in the northeast, it said.

The air force targeted an LTTE hideout frequented by Prabhakaran in raids on jungle bases late yesterday, the ministry cited Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara, an air force spokesman, as saying. The LTTE hasn’t commented on the attacks.

LTTE fighters moved into jungle areas of Mullaitivu after losing control of their headquarters at Kilinochchi on Jan. 2. While the military estimates the group has between 3,000 and 5,000 fighters left, some analysts say there may be as many as 10,000 who will now conduct a guerrilla war.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government last year scrapped a six-year truce with the LTTE and vowed military victory in the 26-year conflict that has killed at least 70,000 people. The Tamil Tigers, who are fighting for a separate homeland in the north and east of the country, lost control of the eastern region 18 months ago and were driven from territory in the northwest by army advances last year.

Jaffna Highway

Soldiers on Jan. 9 seized the main highway to the northern Jaffna Peninsula, taking full control of the area for the first time in 23 years. Communications among Tamil Tiger units have been reduced since the group suffered the defeats, the ministry said.

More than 230 civilians in areas of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu liberated by the army are seeking refuge in centers for displaced people, the ministry said on its Web site. About 200 civilians trying to escape the fighting by sea were detained by the navy, TamilNet reported on its Web site yesterday.

The LTTE’s Peace Secretariat, in a statement issued yesterday, accused the army of shelling civilian areas in the north, saying the artillery fire on Jan. 11 was the “worst in recent times.”

As many as 40 civilians were injured when villages were struck by missiles fired by land, air and sea, TamilNet reported on its Web site two days ago.

The government says ending the conflict is essential for the country’s $32 billion economy, which will likely see its growth weaken to between 5 percent and 5.5 percent this year, according to the central bank.

The LTTE, which says Tamils are discriminated against by the ethnic Sinhalese majority, is fighting for a separate homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Tamils made up 11.9 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 20 million in 2001 and the Sinhalese almost 74 percent, according to a census that year.