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| Sri Lanka |
| Lankan voters back govt offensive |
| 2009-02-16 |
| Sri Lanka's ruling party has won widespread public support for its war against the Tamil Tigers, local election results showed yesterday, as the military braced for a final assault on the rebels. President Mahinda Rajapakse's Freedom Alliance easily won two provincial councils, which went to the polls Saturday, according to provisional counting. Rajapakse had turned the vote into a referendum on his military campaign to crush separatist Tamil Tiger guerrillas who are cornered in the north-east of the island. "The results showed that the people supported the government's war effort," defeated main opposition candidate S. B. Dissanayake said. The president has said he hoped to defeat the Tamil Tigers within days, ending the island's decades-long ethnic conflict. Officials said the air force on Sunday destroyed at least three boats of the Tamil Tigers off the coast of Mullaittivu district, where the fighting is concentrated. Sri Lankan soldiers fought a series of fierce battles with separatist Tamil Tigers as troops advanced further into the rebels' shrinking territory, the military said yesterday. Government forces have won a string of major victories against the insurgents in recent months, capturing their administrative capital of Kilinochchi and seizing their main bases in the north. The government says it is on the verge of crushing the rebel group - which is cornered into a 58-square mile (93-square kilometer) strip of northern coastal land in Mullaittivu - and ending the Indian Ocean island nation's 25-year-old civil war. In the latest fighting, army troops "launched a strong attack" Saturday on rebels in the village of Waduwankal in Mullaittivu, the military said. They later found the bodies of two rebels and a large haul of weapons and ammunition, it said in a statement. |
| Posted by:Fred |