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| Sri Lanka |
| Sri Lankan jets bomb rebel camps |
| 2007-06-29 |
| Sri Lankan fighter jets bombed two Tamil Tiger camps in the island’s far north on Thursday, the military said, the second batch of air strikes in three days, but there were no immediate details of any casualties. In a separate incident, two soldiers were killed in the army-held northern Jaffna peninsula by a roadside bomb while Sri Lankan troops killed 11 Tamil Tigers in the east. “Troops have confronted some terrorists fleeing from Thoppigala (in the east) and were able to kill 11 of them and recover weapons and radio sets,” said an official at the Media Centre for National Security, who asked not to be identified. “We have hit a military base in Mullaithivu (on the northeast coast) - it is really two camps located close to one another,” said military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe. The separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were not immediately available for comment and there was no independent confirmation of what had been hit. Samarasinghe said troops were clearing booby traps and landmines in jungle in the restive eastern district of Batticaloa, where rebels are hemmed into ever-decreasing pockets of territory in the face of an army offensive. “There are a lot of landmines there. Yesterday, two of our soldiers lost their legs because of them.” He said troops were facing only sporadic fire, after weeks of heavy fighting in a major operation to drive the Tigers from territory they held in the east altogether. Fighting is now focused on the north, where the Tigers run a de facto state. Government officials are eyeing long-delayed local government polls in the east to cement a civil administration in a bid to permanently displace the Tigers from the area, although the island’s elections commissioner say no such plans are yet afoot. The Tigers have warned that while they may have moved geographically, they will use all means to fight for an independent state in the north and east. reuters Optimism over peace meet: Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said Thursday he was optimistic that a meeting of top donors this week would help to revive the island nation’s moribund peace process. Peace broker Norway is holding the crucial meeting of Sri Lanka’s top aid donors in a bid to halt a new wave of bloodshed. “We are expecting a very favourable development. The outcome is expected to encourage the current peace process toward contributing to the sustainability of our country,” said Bogollagma. Oslo-brokered peace talks collapsed in October last year and since then diplomatic efforts have failed to end violence in the bitter ethnic conflict which has claimed more than 60,000 lives in the past 35 years. |
| Posted by:Fred |