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| Sri Lanka |
| Sri Lanka fighting death toll reaches 75 |
| 2008-01-08 |
| Sri Lankan troops killed seven Tamil Tigers in the island’s far north on Monday, taking the death toll from fierce fighting to 75, mostly rebels, since Saturday, the military said, as the 25-year civil war escalates. Troops destroyed three rebel bunkers in the far northern Jaffna peninsula early on Monday, the latest in a series of confrontations along a shared “border” that separates government territory from the rebels’ de facto state in the north. Weekend clashes in the Jaffna peninsula, northern district of Vavuniya and northwestern district of Mannar killed 62 rebels and four soldiers, the military said. “Troops attacked three bunkers in Jaffna and killed seven LTTE terrorists,” a spokesman at the Media Centre for National Security said, asking not to be named in line with policy. The military said a further two rebels had been killed in separate incidents in Vavuniya and another northern district, Polonnaruwa. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who seek to carve out an independent state in north and east Sri Lanka, were not immediately available for comment. There were no independent accounts of how many people had been killed or what had happened. Analysts say both sides tend to overstate enemy losses and play down their own. President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s administration notified peace mediator Norway late on Thursday it was formally scrapping a six-year ceasefire pact that fell apart on the ground in early 2006. Well over 5,000 people have been killed since then. The government gave a 14-day notice period, meaning the paper truce officially ends on Jan 16. Its scrapping dashes hopes of resurrecting collapsed peace talks to end a conflict that has killed about 70,000 people since 1983. The government has vowed to wipe out the Tigers militarily, setting the stage for what many fear would be a bloody battle for the north. Already there are near-daily air raids, and land and sea battles. |
| Posted by:Fred |