The troops, backed by fighter jets, had on Thursday stormed two key rebel bastions near Killinocchi in the island's north after killing 50 guerrillas and injuring 100. The security forces took control of the rebels' Iranamadu Junction on Thursday morning, shortly after capturing the LTTE's strategic Paranthan town.
The Sri Lankan government on Wednesday held its first ever Cabinet meeting in the Tamil heartland of Kilinochchi, the erstwhile administrative capital of the vanquished Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam."The weekly Cabinet meeting commenced in Kilinochchi at 10 am today under the patronage of President Mahinda Rajapakse," a statement said.The meeting was conducted at the administrative building of the defence forces headquarters near the Iranamadu tank.
"Over 80 per cent of the war against the LTTE has been completed after regaining 80 per cent of the areas under them and killing over 12,000 of their cadres," Lieutenant General Fonseka said. Fonseka's remarks came on Monday as the troops reached about seven kilometres south of Kilali lagoon which separates the Jaffna peninsula from the mainland.
Bolstered by American and Pakistani support, Colombo is increasingly insensitive to Indian concerns over the plight of the Tamils.
The three men were blown up while rigging an explosive device in the northern Periyarkulam village in the district of Vavuniya.
Sri Lankan forces eliminated surrendering Tiger leaders on the orders of the defence secretary who had instructed that 'all Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leaders must be killed,' ex-army chief General Sarath Fonseka has claimed, prompting the government to describe it as a 'great betrayal.'
A delegation of MPs from Tamil Nadu will be leaving for Sri Lanka tomorrow to get first hand account of the conditions prevailing in the camps housing Lankan Tamil refugees displaced by the war between the island army and the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam.
National Television of Thamil Eelam will be beaming programmes to European nations from an undisclosed location in Sri Lanka's northeast.
"Apart from the way the Tiger leader got killed, the military is also still investigating intelligence wing leader Pottu Amman's death as they could not find his body among top level Tiger leaders," the State-run Sunday Observer said.
Sri Lanka rules out Oslo, Norway as venue for truce talks with LTTE.
At least 64 people were killed in fierce ground clashes and shelling of a key military base close to a Catholic church by Ta mil Tigers in Sri Lanka's embattled northern region, officials have said.
The bomb, planted on a tree-top, exploded as the crowded bus passed by in the Vavuniya district, 250 km north of Colombo, a police official in the area said over telephone.
The attack came a day after Tamil Tigers carried out their first ever air raid, bombing a military airbase near the international airport here killing three airmen and injuring 16.
Cornered Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief V Prabhakaran, who is still holed up in a small strip of land in embattled north, may flee from the island using a submarine, a top Sri Lankan army official said on Friday."Prabhakaran, who is present in the no-fire zone along with his son Charles Anthony, Tigers' intelligence chief Pottu Amman and Sea Tiger chief Soosai, might have retained a submarine to escape from the island," said an army official.
Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa has debunked international criticism over the treatment of the island nation's Tamil minority population.
Sri Lanka on Thursday blamed strategic alliances and domestic political issues, an apparent reference to politics in Tamil Nadu, for the UNHRC resolution that was backed by India to censure Colombo for its alleged war crimes during the ethnic conflict with the Liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said on Friday said the air strikes carried out by it over capital Colombo killing two people and injuring 54 others were suicide attacks by its elite 'Black Air Tiger' squad.
"The best form of defence is offence," Tiger military spokesperson Rasiah Ilanthirayan remarked hours after the Monday clash at an air force base north of Colombo, which killed around 34 people.
The mediators also praised India's role in the developments in the island nation.
Troops and the LTTE exchanged fire along a de facto border in the Wanni region on Tuesday evening, the ministry said.
The blast is supposed to have been triggered by an army unit.
'We have also been very, very clear with the government that the purpose of fighting terrorism is to bring the benefits of a democratic government to the people,' US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said. The US feels the Sri Lankan government 'hasn't worked hard enough to bring that democratic government to the people of the area and frankly, to the Tamil community in Sri Lanka.'
The "message" was given to Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen during his meeting with LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said it was not bound by a declaration issued by international donors who pledged some $4.5 billion to help rebuild Sri Lanka at a June 2003 meeting in Tokyo.
"There is no point in beating around the bush. The government is ready to re-look at it," Defence Ministry Spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said.
The prime mission behind the new Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Professor Gamini Lakshman Peiris' meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is to repair the strained relations between the US and Sri Lanka, which took a beating last year when the Sri Lankan forces were crushing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The US had alleged that there were large scale human rights violations during the military offensive against the tigers.
On the brink of capturing the entire rebel-held territory, Sri Lankan troops killed at least 150 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam cadres in the island's embattled north, where a ship carrying biggest-ever food supplies for displaced civilians was ambushed by suspected guerrillas, officials said on Sunday.
The Lankan president threatened serious action if the LTTE does not stop the killings.
India would arrange for a dialogue between Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam to stop the hostilities in the island nation if the government suspended military operations against the Tigers and the outfit laid down arms, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said in Chennai on Sunday.
The United States on Friday asked Sri Lanka to speed up its probe into allegations of rights abuses during the civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, resume talks with Tamil parties on power sharing and reduce the role of the military in the former conflict zone.
Sri Lankan troops on Wednesday captured the last remaining Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam-held area in Jaffna, establishing total government control over the strategic northern peninsula. A senior LTTE Sea Tiger leader identified only as 'Thiru' was killed during the battle to take over the Chundikulam area, Military spokesperson Uday Nanayakkara said.
Ruling out the possibility of any sudden fall of its last bastions of Killinochchi and Mulaitivu, Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran has said that his group still had thousands of fighters and was also working to "rebuild" relationship with India.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagamchief M Karunanidhi on Wednesday said Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa's statement -- that Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's cadres were still trying very hard to revive the conflict -- was aimed at diverting the world's attention from the alleged human rights violations in the island republic.
Five Tamil protesters forced their way on Monday into the Indian High Commission and smashed bullet proof glasses while thousands agitated against the Sri Lankan military offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, prompting the mission to seek "adequate security" to protect its offices.
The Home Ministry on Tuesday has issued a Look out Circular (LOC) against a USA-based Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam sympathiser Dr. Ellyn Shander, who was to have addressed a meeting in New Delhi on Thursday, at the India Islamic Culture Centre .Shander has a valid Indian visa, still the LOC was issued.
There was no word from the Tigers about the latest clashes or about the possible casualties on their side.\n\n
The International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) has initiated a charity project to provide rehabilitation measures for the Tamil population of Sri Lanka that suffered due to a decades-old war between the country's defence forces and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The disclosure came as police reported that five more bullet-riddled bodies were found in the north-central district of Anuradhapura on Tuesday, 3 days after 5 other bodies bearing bullet injuries were found near the capital.
"We will leave the government if the President does not withdraw the joint mechanism plan with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam by June 15," the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna or People's Liberation Front said.
The government claims that the tigers have two aircraft.
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