Military fight Tamil Tigers for territory
The Sri Lankan military, backed by tanks and war planes, battled Tamil Tiger rebels for over three hours today for control of territory in the east, a military spokesman said, a further escalation of violence in the country’s undeclared civil war.
At least seven government soldiers were wounded in the fight in eastern Batticaloa district, military spokesman, Maj Upali Rajapakse, said, adding rebel casualties were estimated in the “dozens".
“They (rebels) launched a classic, conventional attack on our troops at dawn today and we fought back and managed to force them to retreat,” Rajapakse said, adding that the military used battle tanks and called in air support to bomb rebels’ long-range gun positions.
“We believe our attacks have inflicted heavy (rebel) casualties,” Rajapakse said.
The Tigers, however, accused the military of trying to seize control of their territory.
“The military has started a big operation to capture territory, they have moved closer to our forward defense lines,” the rebels’ military spokesman, Rasiah Ilanthirayan, said from the insurgents’ de facto capital of Kilinochchi.
Rajapakse said the rebels had advanced on government-held areas in Batticaloa last night prompting the military to mobilise troops.
Batticaloa has been home to a breakaway faction of the mainstream rebels since a powerful eastern commander split in 2004 with 6,000 fighters.
The uprising was suppressed by the northern-based rebels, though the renegades enjoy influence, and alleged military backing, in the area – a hotbed of recent violence.
Separately, rebels raided a security camp in northern Kabithigollewa before dawn today, killing three government “home guards” – pro-government civilian residents who have weapons training and help security forces, an official at the national security media center said.
The presence of home guards – all of whom are ethnic Sinhalese – was stepped up in the area, 185 miles north of the capital, Colombo, after a bus bombing in June blamed on the Tigers that killed 64 people, mostly Sinhalese civilians.
Another five solders were wounded in separate attacks further north in Jaffna peninsula, the media center official said.
Also today, three policemen and a government security guard were killed by suspected Tamil Tigers in eastern Ampara, the official said.
He said the three were providing security for ethnic Sinhalese farmers working in their fields.
The Tigers have been fighting for over two decades for a separate homeland for the country’s ethnic Tamil minority, citing discrimination by the Sinhalese majority. A 2002 cease-fire temporarily took the steam out of the bloody civil war, but since last December, airstrikes, mine attacks, assassinations and heavy arms fire have killed more than 3,200 fighters and civilians.
Both sides insist they have not withdrawn from the truce, but peace talks to try to salvage the accord held in Switzerland in October failed to bring about any progress.
With peace talks stalled, the government and the rebels refuse to budge from their positions. The rebels want a separate homeland, while the government says regional autonomy is the maximum it will give.
