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| Sri Lanka |
| Sri Lanka says has captured rebel camp |
| 2009-01-24 |
| Sri Lankan forces fought a string of battles with Tamil Tiger insurgents across the war-wracked north, seizing a rebel camp and killing at least five separatist fighters, the military said on Friday. The fighting came amid a major government offensive aimed at destroying the group and ending this Indian Ocean island nation's quarter-century civil war. In recent weeks troops forced the rebels out of much of their heartland in the north, boxing them into a small corner of the northeast. In fighting on Thursday, government forces overran a small rebel camp in the Mullaittivu district, military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said. The camp, which probably had housed 30 or 40 fighters, consisted of two huts and a weapons cache of more than 200 mines and roadside bombs, he said. "They may have just left it when they were withdrawing," he added. In other fighting along the front lines, troops recovered the bodies of five rebel fighters, the military said. Rebel spokesman were not available for comment, but the rebel-affiliated website TamilNet reported that the insurgents killed 40 government soldiers in fighting. The new fighting came amid reports of growing civilian casualties. On Thursday, health officials in the rebel-held area reported that the military had shelled a hospital and a village inside a government-declared "safe zone" for displaced families, killing at least 30 people. Health officials said at least 67 civilians were killed in shelling since Tuesday. |
| Posted by:Fred |