[Mail and Globe] Sri Lanka's military readied on Monday for a final assault on Tamil Tigers boxed into a strip of jungle with thousands of trapped civilians, after urging the rebels to surrender or face annihilation.
Security forces were moving ahead after killing at least 480 Tiger rebels in four days of fierce fighting in the northeast of the island that ended on Sunday, military officials said.
Troops recovered the bodies from Puthukkudiriruppu district which was brought under control of the security forces on Sunday, military spokesperson Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. He said the guerrillas were now confined to a 20 square kilometre coastal area which the military has
designated a "safe zone" for tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the conflict area. "They continue to use civilians as a human shield and attack security forces from the safe zone," Nanayakkara said. Sporadic clashes were reported from the region on Monday.
Army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka told US ambassador Robert Blake that he believed Tamil Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran may still be hiding in the area.
An "exodus of trapped civilians could be expected at any moment", Fonseka told Blake according to an army statement.
In the past four months, about 65 000 people have managed to flee the war zone and find shelter in government-run camps.
The United Nations and other foreign aid organisations say as many as 150 000 civilians may still be trapped, although the Sri Lankan government insists the figure is less than half that.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Haven't I seen these headline before---several times?
#2
We saw several times that they were bracing for the final battle against this town or that sector, most of them pretty much unpronouncable. This is the first of what'll probably be several where they're finally gonna roll up the Tigers for good.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2009 7:53 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I recall seeing the SLA war zone maps, with the animation of their progress, and there may be more truth here than normal skepticism justifies.
If my conversion is correct, 20km2 is roughly 8-9 sq. miles, and I believe this is in a narrow strip of land. So, the LLTE doesn't really have any interior defenses left.
Sure, there will be several more unpronouncable locales, and related press releases, but unless there's a dramatic diversion or catastrophic loss of while, the government forces seem positioned to play this out.
Note how long they've kept the press and NGO/UN away from the front - seems like a sure sign of progress there.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Mail and Globe] Sri Lanka's military readied on Monday for a final assault on Tamil Tigers boxed into a strip of jungle with thousands of trapped civilians, after urging the rebels to surrender or face annihilation. 
