Sri Lankan soldiers shot dead the head of military intelligence for the Tamil rebels in an ambush in the country's northern province, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.Shanmuganathan Ravishankar was killed, along with 20 other members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, when the soldiers ambushed a van in which he was traveling in the Adampan area of Mannar, spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said today in a telephone interview from the capital Colombo. ``There was a heavy exchange of artillery and mortar fire. He was shot dead by the soldiers.''
Ravishankar was in charge of ``internal intelligence'' of Tamil ground forces and led a regular combat force that has been deployed in the Mannar region, pro-rebel TamilNet reported on its Web site. Three of his lieutenants were also killed in the ``claymore mine ambush,'' it said. The LTTE spokesman, Rasiah Ilanthrirayan, was not immediately available for comment.
Sri Lanka on Jan. 2 announced its plan to formally withdraw from a 2002 cease-fire accord, saying the Tamil rebels had used the cease-fire to rearm, recruit and prepare further attacks on the South Asian island. Norway, which brokered the agreement, said it may have to withdraw international cease-fire monitors, weakening efforts to protect the civilian population.
The Tamil Tigers, designated a terrorist group by the U.S., the European Union and India, have been fighting for 24 years in a conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people. The group hasn't commented on the government's decision to end the truce.
Fighting intensified in late 2006 in the country's north and east after two rounds of peace talks failed.
The military captured the eastern region in July last year and then stepped up operations against rebel bases in the north.
The offensive aims to force the Tamils to abandon armed struggle and seek a political solution to the issue of Tamil separatism, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said last week.
Sri Lankan soldiers know the movements of Tamil rebels, Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said, according to the transcript of an interview posted on the Defense Ministry Web site. ``We are after Prabhakaran. We are specifically targeting their leadership,'' he said, adding that the Tamil Tigers must renounce violence.
The government said in December it has information that rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was wounded in an air raid on the group's headquarters at Kilinochchi, in the north, on Nov. 26.
S.P. Thamilchelvan, the head of LTTE's political wing, was killed in a Nov. 2 air raid near Kilinochchi as the military increased its operations against the Tamil Tiger bases.
Thirteen civilians, including seven children who were playing in a school, were injured in air raids by the Sri Lankan air force in northern Mullaithivu yesterday, the LTTE said in an e-mailed statement today. During the last year 659 Tamil civilians have died in the conflict, it said.