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| Sri Lanka |
| 8 rebels killed in Sri Lanka clashes |
| 2007-11-10 |
| Sri Lankan troops killed eight Tamil Tiger rebels in fighting in the north of the island, while two policemen were killed by a suspected rebel roadside bomb, a military spokesman said on Friday. The clashes, in the northern district of Vavuniya and northwestern district of Mannar on Thursday, were the latest in a series of near-daily engagements in recent months between government forces and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). “The troops killed five terrorists in two separate confrontations in Vavuniya and three terrorists were killed when troops retaliated to LTTE mortar fire in Mannar,” a spokesman at the Media Centre for National Security said. Four soldiers were wounded in the fighting in Vavuniya, the spokesman added. In a separate incident in the northern area of Welioya on Friday, two police officials were killed by a suspected Tamil Tiger roadside Claymore fragmentation mine explosion, the military said. The fighting follows a major battle in the Jaffna peninsula on Wednesday in which the military said they killed 60 rebels. The Tigers said 20 soldiers were killed and more than 100 wounded in the clash, and that just one of their fighters was killed. Tamil faction hit: A pro-government faction of Tamil Tiger defectors has been hit by major political in-fighting following the arrest in London of its leader, known as Colonel Karuna, military officials said Friday. Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, alias Karuna, was detained by immigration authorities in London last week and since then his followers in Sri Lanka have been battling for control over his faction, the officials said. Karuna, the former number two in the Tamil Tigers, led a split from the guerrillas in March 2004. Since then he has reportedly been collaborating with government forces to drive the Tigers from the east of the island. He was arrested and is being held in immigration detention having apparently fled Sri Lanka because of threats to his life from Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran. “A faction within the Karuna group has been taking over the political offices and the finances which were earlier controlled by Karuna,” a military source in the island’s east said. “There had been several attacks against Karuna cadres from his rivals.” The problems in the Karuna faction are a potential issue for the Sri Lankan government, which has used the group’s loyalty to stake its claim over the island’s east - an area the LTTE want as their independent Tamil homeland. The affair is also embarrassing, and officials in Colombo have yet to comment on his arrest. |
| Posted by:Fred |