The Ceylon News

Sri Lanka's military says troops have entered the last Tamil Tiger-held town in the country's north. [AFP] Sri Lankan soldiers have entered the last rebel-held town in the country's north after heavy fighting for full control of the territory, the military said. Defence officials said government troops swept into the town of Puthukudiyiruppu on Tuesday following fierce overnight clashes northeast of Colombo, the capital. The separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels sustained heavy casualties in the fighting and lost a large cache of weapons in the area, the officials said. There was no immediate comment from the LTTE. Meanwhile, in the eastern port city of Trincomalee, the military said police recovered a surface-to-air missile suspected to have been hidden by the rebels. Ceasefire offer 'hilarious' Tuesday's offensive comes a day after the LTTE announced it would comply with international calls for a ceasefire, but would not surrender its weapons. The rebels issued a statement on Monday appealing to international powers to step in and broker a truce. "The international community must do everything in its power to bring a ceasefire so that the miseries of the Tamils ... are brought to an end," the statement said. The LTTE said "the international community should apply pressure on the Sri Lankan government to seek not a military, but a political, solution to the ethnic conflict". But in its statement, the LTTE rejected calls to disarm. Keheliya Rambukwella, a government spokesman, dismissed the ceasefire offer as "hilarious" and said it comes just as the LTTE is "on the verge of defeat militarily". The LTTE is fighting for a separate Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka's north, claiming Tamils have suffered years of discrimination by the country's Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting since Sri Lanka's civil war began in 1983.

Sri Lankan soldiers have entered the last town held by the Tamil Tiger separatists and were battling to take full control of it on Tuesday, the military said.

Soldiers from the 58th Division entered Puthukudiyiruppu township after heavy fighting. That is the last actual town the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) still control; after that there are only a handful of small coastal villages left.

"They are inside Puthukudiyiruppu and fighting to take control," defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella, also a minister, said.

On Monday, Reuters was at the frontline just to the west of the town centre, where 58 Division commander, Brigadier Shavendra Silva, said: "It's the last objective." Silva at the time said he was measuring the war in days, and not weeks.

His soldiers now have less than 6 km to go before they reach a 12-km long no-fire zone the army established on the Indian Ocean island's northeast coast.

It is there that he and other commanders expect a final showdown with the LTTE, the final act in a war that began in earnest in 1983 and is now Asia's longest-running.

Slowing the offensive is the presence of tens of thousands of civilians there, the military said. Witnesses who have escaped have said the Tigers were shooting people who tried to flee and making others stay and fight.

The military says there are no more than 70,000 people inside the sliver of a war zone that is left, while aid agencies estimate it to be around 200,000.

Among those people are the commanders of the LTTE, the military says. The group is on U.S., E.U., Canadian and Indian terrorism lists for their widespread use of the suicide bomb to kill enemies, politicians and civilians alike.

Meanwhile, the military said police in the eastern port of Trincomalee said they had recovered an SAM-14 surface-to-air missile suspected to have been hidden by the LTTE.

Despite having an arsenal impressive even by formal military standards, that particular weapon has been noticeably missing from the battlefield amid repeated air force helicopter strikes that have helped propel the swift offensive.

The LTTE said on Monday it would accept a ceasefire, but not surrender and urged the international community to try and secure the former. The government has said the Tigers must surrender or be destroyed.

The LTTE say they are fighting to establish a separate state for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, which complains of decades of mistreatment by successive governments led by the Sinhalese ethnic majority since independence from Britain in 1948.

	The Sri Lankan group is accused of shooting dead a French policeman

Sugeeswara Senadheera, Minister Counsellor, Sri Lankan embassy in Paris, told BBC Sandeshaya that all arrested were members of the LTTE.

The French policeman was shot dead, Mr. Senadheera said, as he questioned the group collecting money for a banned organisation.

“The only banned organisation that Tamil people are collecting money in France is the LTTE,” he told BBC Sinhala service.

Leader of the group was identified as Kandaiyah, a man who has links with the LTTE, according to the official. A Tamil woman is also among the arrested.

Sri Lankan embassy in Paris, he said, is helping the French police with the investigations.

Mr. Senadheera added that the police have found police officer’s pistol, which was reported to be used for the murder, in the rubbish bin in front of the main suspect.

The French police have arrested 19 suspected LTTE members, last year.

“There is also a link between the two incidents as the shooting incident has happened in front of the LTTE Paris leader’s residence,” he said.

After being battered by Sri Lanka, a desperate LTTE may target India, the island nation’s Army Chief has warned. In an interview given to an Indian daily, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka on Monday said that the Tamil Tiger rebels could attack southern India’s economic and civilian targets in aerial strikes.

The Indian government has made it clear that it would not interfere in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs, reiterated that the LTTE is a banned organisation in India, and has only sought assurance for Tamil civilians’ safety from the island nation’s government.

According to the Sri Lankan Army Chief, the LTTE’s air wing – though its strength has now got depleted following the downing of two of its planes during the recent air attack on Colombo – still has the capability to attack targets in India.

“The LTTE and their sympathisers in South India are angry that the Indian government is no longer toeing the LTTE line; it is now only talking about the plight of the civilians,” Fonseka was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

“They are capable of flying all the way from the north-east of Sri Lanka, attack targets in Colombo (more than 250 km one way) and fly back. They can do the same in India,” he added.

The threat to India seems credible as the Tigers were able to launch an air attack on Colombo even though all their seven airfields have been captured by the Sri Lankan Army in the ongoing offensive.

The Army Chief stated that the rebels’ low-flying aircraft, which are difficult to detect, could easily carry out attacks more than 150-170 km inside India.

“And if they are on a suicide mission, the aircraft could fly deeper and not come back at all,” he warned.

Asked whether targeting India would be of any use to the LTTE, especially in the wake of heightened criticism for allegedly not letting thousands of displaced Tamil civilians escape the warzone, Fonseka said: “The LTTE had the audacity or were stupid enough to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi on Indian soil. They do not believe in peace or talks. Now they are just confined to around 35 sq km on the main land and some 20 sq km of beach area in Mullaitivu. They are desperate.”

With regard to the whereabouts of LTTE chief V Prabhakaran, the Sri Lankan Army Chief believes he is still hiding in Mullaitivu.