Sri Lanka’s military said Thursday its war planes had Thursday “completely destroyed” a hideout where Tamil Tiger leaders were meeting, a day after its truce with the rebels officially ended.The air strike on the northern rebel centre of Kilinochchi also came after suspected rebels killed 27 people in an attack on a public bus in the south. “Sri Lanka Air Force fighter jets targeted an LTTE (Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam) senior leaders’ gathering at Jayapoor in Kilinochchi,” the defence ministry said in a statement. “Pilots confirmed that the location was completely destroyed.”
Rebel website: A pro-rebel website however said the bombs hit a civilian area in Kilinochchi, the main town in the rebels’ northern mini-state, wounding seven people and damaging nine houses. It said the planes “bombed a civilian area with a mechanic workshop,” and that the Tamil Tigers responded with anti-aircraft fire. No independent confirmation of the conflicting accounts of the raid was available.
The air strike came hours after a truce, signed by the LTTE and the government in 2002, officially ended at midnight on Wednesday. It also came the day after the Tigers were blamed for bombing and shooting at a public bus, killing 27 civilians and wounding more than 60 others, according to a new toll issued by authorities. Six farmers were also reported to have been shot dead by an LTTE unit in the same area.
Bus blast victims: Military said on Thursday most of the 27 people killed in the bus ambush were shot by rebels as the passengers tried to flee rather than in the blast that struck the vehicle. “There are now 27 people killed,” said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara. “There are now 49 people in hospital as others have been released after treatment. The death toll was 26 late on Wednesday.
He said nine children were among the wounded, including a one-month-old baby, in the attack. “The terrorists opened fire at people getting down from the bus,” Nanayakkara added. “Most were killed and injured due to gunfire, not the bomb.” “This is a brazen demonstration to the whole world of (the Tigers’) unchanged commitment to terrorism and the absolute rejection of democracy and all norms of civilised behaviour...” President Mahinda Rajapaksa said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Sri Lankan government pulled out of the ceasefire arguing that the Tigers, who want to carve out an independent state in the north and east of the island, had only used the truce to re-arm. Fighting has been escalating over the past year, and Nordic peace monitors said late last year that they had lost count of the number of violations of the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire.
Defence officials in Colombo have spelled out their determination to kill LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran, who has been leading a rebellion against the islandÂ’s ethnic Sinhalese majority since 1972. Meanwhile the defence ministry said fighting was continuing across front lines in the north, with the military claiming to have killed six more rebels.