Sri Lanka said on Saturday it had smashed the Tamil Tigers’ maritime capability as Colombo pressed on with an offensive to crush the rebels.
The Sri Lankan government vowed on Friday to capture all Tamil Tiger-held territory within 48 hours.
The Sri Lankan military have accused Tamil Tigers of using phosphorus bombs in an attempt to face off against an onslaught by government troops.
Sporadic clashes in the last two days between Tamil Tiger rebels and the military have killed 37 rebels, the military said on Wednesday, as daily land, sea battles and air raids continue in Sri Lanka’s far north. The fighting came amidst news that Tamil Tiger second-in-command, Brigadier Balraj, died from a heart attack in rebel-held north on Tuesday.
Sri Lankan troops killed 38 Tamil Tiger rebels for the loss of four soldiers in fresh fighting in the island’s north, the military said on Friday. Thursday’s fighting came as the military captured stretches of Tiger-held terrain in the north-western district of Mannar as part of a wider strategy to gradually retake the Tigers’ northern stronghold and win a 25-year civil war.
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/ 6 February 2008
Sri Lankan troops backed by tanks and artillery destroyed 30 Tamil Tiger bunkers in the island’s far north on Wednesday killing 12 rebels, while air force jets bombed a gathering of rebel leaders, the military said. The air raid targeted a gathering of senior Tigers near their de facto capital of Kilinochchi.
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/ 4 February 2008
With a parade of tanks, troops and rocket launchers, Sri Lanka on Monday marked its 60th anniversary of independence from Britain amid tight security after a string of attacks blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels. Thousands of police and troops were on high alert in the capital Colombo as the island’s armed forces put on a show of military might.
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/ 2 February 2008
A bomb exploded on a civilian bus in the central Sri Lankan town of Dambulla on Saturday, killing at least 18 people and wounding 50, the military said. The explosion was the latest in a series of bomb attacks blamed on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelan, rebels fighting to create an independent state in the island’s north and east.
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/ 18 January 2008
At least nine civilians were shot dead by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels in southern Sri Lanka, the military said on Friday, two days after 27 people were killed in a bus ambush in a nearby town. A six-year truce between the state and rebels formally ended on Wednesday.
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/ 31 December 2007
Sri Lanka’s air force bombed a Tamil Tiger training base in the north and nine rebels and two soldiers were killed in ground battles, the military said on Monday. The air raids in the district of Mullaitivu and clashes in the northern district of Vavuniya and the north-western district of Mannar were the latest engagements in intensified fighting.
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/ 26 October 2007
Sri Lanka has ordered a high-level probe into a public display of the naked bodies of Tamil Tiger rebels who devastated a key air force base earlier this week, officials said on Friday. Two tractors pulled trailers loaded with the stripped corpses and mutilated body parts from the base to Anuradhapura Hospital, 210km north of Colombo.
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/ 22 October 2007
The Tamil Tigers air wing bombed a north Sri Lanka air force base before dawn on Monday, the military said, while the Tigers said suicide fighters mounted their biggest ground assault since the two-decade civil war began. The rebel air strike in the north-central district of Anuradhapura comes months after the Tigers’ first-ever air attacks using light aircraft.