COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels vowed Friday to hang on to a key northeastern enclave after the military pounded the area with airstrikes and artillery for a fifth day. S. Elilan, a regional leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, said: "This is an area under our control and Tamil people live here. We will not allow the military to invade."Military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said air force jets took out rebel positions overnight in Sampur, where rebels have been firing artillery and mortar shells at a port the military uses to send supplies to its 43,000 troops in the northern Jaffna Peninsula. The military's push to recapture the 19-square-mile area, across a lagoon from the strategic Trincomalee naval base, has opened a new front in the country's conflict with the ethnic Tamil insurgents.
Sri Lanka's top military official, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, told The Associated Press on Thursday that government troops would take the area within a few days.