The Ceylon News

Sri Lanka Army sources said that the LTTE had sent a child suicide bomber to attack the Army 55 Division frontline yesterday (Feb 4). According to the sources, the child suicide bomber possibly between 13-16 years of age had exploded by remotely around 8.30 PM after reaching the soldiers in guise of a civilian seeking refuge with them.

The sources said that explosion could harm only one soldier as the others had managed to move into safer distance after identifying the suspicious behaviour of the suicide bomber. The sources added citing eyewitness account that child soldier had behaved in a manner as he had been drugged or severely harassed before the mission.

Using child soldiers as one-way fighters or those who are sent for the battle to suffer certain death has been one of the main tactics of the LTTE since long. LTTE chief V. Prbhakaran is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Tamil children who were killed in many human wave attacks carried out by the LTTE during last 26 years. The LTTE has been placed in the UN list of shame for using child combatants for war since last few years. Many Sri Lankan Tamils believe that the damage caused by the psychopathic leader of the LTTE to the Tamil population could not be mend for another several generations.

The LTTE front office in Switzerland was surrounded and pelted with stones by a group of Tamil protestors a few hours ago today (Feb 6) urging the immediate release of the civilians held as a human shield by the LTTE in Mullaittivu. The group of Swiss Tamils led a protest in the morning hours, also accusing the LTTE terrorist outfit solely responsible for the plight of the Tamil youth in Wanni.

"LTTE is no longer the liberators; they are the true cause for the unprecedented suffering of our brethren. Our children are dragged from schools, women turned into human bombs and elderly forced to an 'essential arms training' what they (LTTE) define as a 'self defence' training", a protestor was quoted as saying.

The attack at the LTTE office was reported subsequent to a demonstration which was organized by the Swiss Tamils to show solidarity towards the people held by LTTE at Mullaittivu, Swiss news sources reported.

More information will follow

The ICRC says it is "very concerned" about the attack on its office

The Sri Lankan government has accused the Red Cross of inciting panic over the military operation against Tamil Tiger rebels in the north.

A spokesman said the ICRC had ordered 35,000 body bags for the battle zone to create what he called a fear psychosis among the international community.

The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed a routine order of body bags but nowhere near that number.

It said its office in Colombo had been attacked by protesters.

Meanwhile the army says it is closing in on remaining Tamil Tiger positions, confining them to an area of about 200 sq km (124 sq miles).

UN chief's call

Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said: "There is no need for 35,000 body bags or for that matter 3,500.

"They may cancel the order tomorrow. But first they want to create a fear psychosis in the eyes of the international community."

ICRC spokeswoman Sophie Romanens told AFP: "We help in the transfer of bodies of combatants across the front lines and for this we need body bags, but the number we have ordered is far, far less than 35,000."

INSURGENCY TIMELINE 1976: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam form in the north-east 1987: India deploys peace-keepers to Tamil areas but they leave in 1990 1993: President Premadasa killed by Tiger bomb 2001: Attack on airport destroys half Sri Lankan Airlines fleet 2002: Government and rebels agree ceasefire 2005: Mahinda Rajapaksa becomes president 2006: Heavy fighting resumes 2009: Army takes main rebel bases of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu In pictures: Inside 'Tiger bunker' Sri Lanka journalists 'risk death' Voices from Sri Lanka

She said the main Red Cross office in Colombo had been attacked on Friday.

"They were shouting slogans and pelting stones. No-one was hurt fortunately, but some windows were broken."

The Red Cross has said hundreds of civilians have been killed in the fighting in the north-east.

Correspondents say the protesters were complaining that the Red Cross was favouring the Tamil Tigers.

Aid agencies - most recently the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) - continue to remain concerned about the plight of thousands of civilians who it is feared are trapped between the two sides.

The WFP said on Friday that 250,000 people are facing a food crisis. It says that it has not been able to get a supply convoy to the war affected areas since the middle of January.

The Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation said more than 2,500 civilians had recently managed to flee the diminishing area the rebels still control and another 3,000 were "waiting to come over."

The military say the battle is now entering its final stages

A government spokesman said that UN chief Ban Ki-moon telephoned President Mahinda Rajapakse to discuss the plight of the non-combatants. It said he was given an "assurance" they would not be harassed.

Meanwhile, troops are near Puthukudiyiruppu village, which officials describe as the last major rebel position.

The BBC's Ethirajan Anbarasan says that if the army captures Puthukudiyiruppu, the rebels will be confined only to small villages, coastal areas and jungles, where close-quarter fighting will be intense.

Senior Tiger leaders have not commented on the latest military claims. The UN says it now has no communication links with them.

However the pro-rebel TamilNet website again accused the army of shelling a hospital. It released photos of dead people at Puthukudiyiruppu hospital, which it said came under fire on Wednesday and Thursday.

Independent journalists are prevented by the government from travelling to war-hit areas, so there is no way of getting independent corroboration of either side's claims.

Exhibition

On Thursday, the Sri Lankan army said that troops had captured a large quantity of automatic rifles, detonators and hand grenades from three rebel camps in the district of Mullaittivu. The army says that one of the camps belonged to the "Ratha unit" which provided security to rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

The military also said on Thursday that it had captured the last major rebel naval base in the north-east. It said that the deputy leader of the rebel Sea Tigers unit was among the senior commanders killed in the fighting.

Correspondents say that the fall of the Chalai base means that the Tigers now only have access to 20km (12 miles) of coastline in the north-east.

The government earlier insisted there would be no ceasefire with the rebels, despite international calls for talks.

Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa rejected any amnesty for top rebel leaders, but said that "lower level cadres" would be "given amnesty, retrained, given vocational training and integrated into mainstream society".

Meanwhile the government has opened an exhibition in Colombo showcasing materials, weapons and photos it says have been recently captured from the rebels.

London, Feb 06: Britain urged Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels to renounce "terrorist methods" and join the "democratic mainstream" in the island nation, where they are battling to avoid defeat after decades of conflict.

Junior Foreign Minister Bill Rammell renewed a call for a ceasefire between Sri Lankan government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), whose leaders have been offered an amnesty if they surrender.

"Our position remains that a political solution that addresses the legitimate concerns of all communities is the only way to bring a sustainable end to the conflict," he said in a parliamentary debate on the conflict.

"We urge the LTTE to renounce terrorist methods and to demonstrate a genuine commitment to participate in a democratic political process to resolve the conflict.”

He added, "The LTTE should be doing all it can to protect civilians... We call on those who have influence over the LTTE also to encourage them to enter the democratic mainstream."

The comments came as the Sri Lankan government offered an amnesty to Tamil Tiger rebels who surrender, but rejected international appeals for ceasefire talks and vowed to crush those who fight on.

Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told Parliament that some rebels were ready to lay down their arms as they faced imminent defeat in their decades-long battle for an independent ethnic Tamil homeland.

Colombo, Feb 06: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday telephoned Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa amid growing international concern over the plight of thousands of civilians trapped in the island's northern war zone.

The President's office said in a statement late Thursday night that the UN chief, who was in New Delhi, had a telephone conversation with President Rajapaksa in the evening on the situation in Sri Lanka.

"President Mahinda Rajapaksa today told the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that the current military operations to defeat terrorism in Sri Lanka would be carried out without harassment to the civilian population in the north," the statement said.

"President Rajapaksa was responding to inquiries by Mr Ban Ki-moon about the progress of operations against the LTTE's terrorism, and the situation regarding the civilians in the affected areas in the north of Sri Lanka," it said.

According to the statement, the UN Secretary General was also told that the Sri Lankan security forces were "compelled to carry out a humanitarian operation against a brutal terrorist organisation, as the government considered the freeing of the Tamil people from the suffering they were undergoing under the forces of terror as its responsibility".

"In the telephone conversation that lasted more than 15 minutes, President Rajapaksa brought to the attention of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that the LTTE had paid no heed to the recent call made by the Tokyo Co-Chairs for them to seek modalities for ending hostilities, including laying down of arms and renunciation of violence," the President's office said.

Sri Lankan government forces are claiming to have captured the biggest sea base of the rebel Tamil Tigers in the country's northeast.

Military officials on Thursday said that the Tigers were now left with just 20km coastline in the northeastern district of Mullaittivu, following the fall of the Chalai base.

"The army has just moved into the Chalai base," a military official said.

"Troops are now consolidating their hold in the coastal area."

The claims of the capture came as the Sri Lankan government insisted that the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was close to being vanquished.

In an address to the parliament on Thursday, Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, the Sri Lankan prime minister, said: "Our forces have now surrounded the last stronghold of the terrorists. Our troops are challenging the Tigers waiting in front of their den."

In video

Sri Lankan hospital shelled

Wickremanayake said that the government will only accept an unconditional surrender by the Tamil Tigers, who he said were "facing imminent defeat after a fruitless 25-year war for a separate Tamil homeland".

“The last moment of Tigers will be painful as well as decisive,” he said.

Disrupting rebel supplies

There was no immediate comment from the Tamil Tigers on the government claim, but the seizure of Chalai would disrupt rebel supplies as the sea base was used to receive arms and fuel from other countries through a widespread smuggling network.

Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, a Sri Lankan military spokesman, said the rebels still retained some capability to launch naval suicide missions from small bases along the coast.

"But for now, they are fighting a last-gasp battle for survival, bearing the brunt of a daily barrage of artillery," he added.

Focus: Sri Lanka

Video: Rajapaksa hails end of LTTE Q&A: Sri Lanka's civil war The history of the Tamil Tigers Timeline: Conflict in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan troops have been engaged in an all-out offensive in recent months against the LTTE, which has been fighting since 1983 to carve out a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils in the country's north and east.

The United Nations and other aid agencies say some 250,000 civilians are trapped in the war zone.

As concerns grow for the trapped civilians, aid groups said that the last functioning hospital in the war zone was shut down down after being shelled for the fifth time in three days.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said staff and patients fled the hospital in Puthukudiyiruppu after an attack on Wednesday, the latest in a series that have left 12 people dead.

"We are shocked that a medical facility has again sustained direct hits. We have grave concerns for the well-being and safety of those who fled," Paul Castella, head of the ICRC's Colombo delegation, said in a statement.

The hospital's staff and 300 patients were evacuated to a coastal area deeper inside the war zone where there is no reliable source of drinking water, Sarasi Wijeratne, a spokeswoman for the ICRC, said.

Aid workers are trying to find them a better place to stay or get the military and the LTTE to grant them safe passage out of the conflict zone, she said.

Patients' plight

Describing the plight of the fleeing patients, Sophie Romanens of the ICRC, said: "In the new place there was no adeguate medical facility to have more than 300 patients. So some of them are staying with family if they have relatives in that area.

"But most of them are in a community centre, which is just not a place to have so many patients.

"One of our colleagues described the scene inside the community centre; they said patients are lying on the ground with IV drips hanging from a tree."

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Thursday, Barbara Trachsel of the aid group Caritas, said: "From what we understand, the people are withheld in the territory by the LTTE.

"Most of these people also have their family with them, they are part of the peoplle being withheld.

"Our workers have not been able to leave the territory either, over the last few months."

The UN has, meanwhile, said cluster munitions appeared to have been dropped near the Puthukudiyiruppu hospital during the fighting.

Gordon Weiss, a UN spokesman, said 15 UN workers and 81 family members who were trapped near the hospital also fled after the area came under intense artillery fire, including what appeared to be cluster munitions.

Cluster munitions are controversial because of their ability to cause damage over a wide area.

Many of the so-called bomblets they contain do not explode immediately and pose a danger to civilians long after fighting ends.

Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's minister of foreign affairs, told Al Jazeera that "Sri Lankan forces have given categorical assurances that they are not using cluster bombs, nor are they procuring them".