Sri Lanka’s air force carried out four raids on bases of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam near the group’s headquarters as the military advances on the last rebel strongholds in the island’s north.
Fighter jets and helicopters took part in the raids at Nachchikuda in Kilinochchi district late yesterday, the Defense Ministry said on its Web site. The LTTE hasn’t commented on the latest attacks.
LTTE-controlled areas in the northern Wanni region are “rapidly and steadily shrinking in size,” the army said in a report on its Web site.
Sri Lanka’s military has carried out almost daily attacks on the Tamil Tigers in the north since ending a 2002 cease-fire in January. The army estimates the LTTE, which has been fighting for 25 years for a separate homeland in the north and east, still has about 5,000 personnel in bases in the jungle.
The air force has targeted the LTTE “very systematically,” attacking its leaders, training and military bases and ammunition stores, Air Marshal Roshan Goonetileke, the air force commander, said in an interview with the Daily News published on the Defense Ministry’s Web site.
“Their fighting capability, their morale and the will to fight have gone down,” he said.
Civilians Flee
The army offensives and bombing raids have forced more than 113,000 people from their homes in northern villages, the LTTE’s Peace Secretariat said earlier this month. The group has accused the air force of dropping bombs in civilian areas and says the army operations amount to genocide.
“When we select targets, we take great trouble to see there are no civilians in the vicinity,” Goonetileke said. “When the area becomes smaller and smaller, this consideration has to be foremost in our plan.”
The government’s economic blockade is preventing supplies, including kerosene for fires, reaching people who are in temporary shelters in Kilinochchi district, TamilNet reported on its Web site. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Aug. 14 that tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in recent weeks.
Civilians are being assisted in the north, Sri Lanka’s government said on its Web site yesterday.
“Urgent measures have been taken to provide adequate food and shelter to the displaced people and additional facilities are being constructed in government-controlled areas,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Eastern Region
The Tamil Tigers, designated a terrorist group by India, the U.S. and European Union, suffered their worst defeat when they lost control of Sri Lanka’s eastern region to the army a year ago.
The government said in December that LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was hurt in an air raid on the group’s headquarters. S.P. Thamilchelvan, head of the political wing, died in a Nov. 2 air raid near Kilinochchi and the military intelligence chief was killed Jan. 6.
The military will free the north as it did the east and will continue fighting until all territory is retaken and “each and every terrorist is killed or captured,” Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa said in a speech earlier this week. The insurgency has claimed the lives of more than 70,000 people.
(Bloomberg)
