Security forces ambushed and killed scores of Tamil Tigers in northern Sri Lanka yesterday, the defence ministry said, adding its troops were poised to take the rebels' political capital. Government soldiers occupying a newly-captured bunker line from the Tiger rebels in the Jaffna peninsula carried out the ambush early Tuesday, the ministry said in a statement. It did not say if there were casualties among troops.However, the ministry said government soldiers in the northern mainland were set to take the town of Kilinochchi, the political capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Heavy fighting was raging along three fronts on the outskirts of Kilinochchi despite monsoon rains, the ministry said.
"Soldiers are busy with strengthening the supply backbone for troops in the forward areas with loads of food, drinking water and medicine being transported there," the ministry said. "Troops await the next move. 'Kilinochchi we are coming' is their motto," the statement added.
On Monday, the ministry said 27 soldiers had been killed and another 70 wounded in fighting around Kilinochchi. The Tigers said they killed 43 troops while the military claimed they had killed over 120 Tigers.
A pro-rebel report, meanwhile, said the guerrillas killed 43 soldiers in a separate battle Sunday and halted the government's march toward a strategic crossroads northwest of Kilinochchi. TamilNet quoted unidentified rebel officials as saying the clash occurred in Nalloor village. The rebels took away the bodies of eight soldiers, it said.
Rebel officials could not be contacted for comment on the government report because communication lines to the north have been severed.
The head of the government's security information centre, Lakshman Hulugalle, declined to comment on the report by the pro-rebel Web site, saying the government would not respond to accounts by rebel supporters.
The government has vowed to crush the rebels and end their decades-old separatist campaign. Government soldiers in recent months have captured a number of key rebel bases and large swaths of land previously controlled by the guerrillas, seizing the country's entire west and forcing the insurgents into a shrinking territory in the northeast.
However, the rebels have offered stiff resistance as the soldiers approach Kilinochchi.