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/ 3 February 2009
Sri Lanka’s president said on Monday that the army was on the brink of crushing the Tamil Tigers — hours after artillery shells struck a hospital.
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/ 21 January 2009
Sri Lanka’s navy forced a fleeing Tamil Tiger plane to turn back in barrages of anti-aircraft fire, military sources said on Wednesday.
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/ 16 January 2009
Thousands have fled Sri Lanka’s northern war zone in recent days, crossing the front lines amid fierce fighting, the military said on Friday.
Assault signals Tamil Tigers are turning to guerrilla tactics as government closes in on rebel-held territory.
Sri Lankan troops captured more territory from Tamil Tiger rebels in the northern Jaffna peninsula on Thursday, officials said.
Sri Lankan attack helicopters bombed Tamil Tiger positions on Saturday, a day after ground forces seized the rebel headquarters town of Kilinochchi.
Sri Lankan troops marched into the Tamil Tigers’ de facto capital of Kilinochchi and the town is about to fall to the government , an official said.
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/ 28 December 2008
A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber killed six paramilitary guards and wounded more than a dozen others in a residential area in Colombo.
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/ 22 October 2008
Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels struck back against a major government offensive on Wednesday with suicide attacks on merchant ships.
Hard not to laugh when you’re told about Claymore landmines. I am being told of them by a helpful young Sri Lankan near a military checkpoint.
The number of conflicts in which child soldiers were involved dropped sharply from 27 in 2004 to 17 at the end of 2007, according to a report on Tuesday by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. But despite the decline, the report said tens of thousands of children remain in the ranks of militias and other armed groups in at least 24 countries.
At least 100 Sri Lankan troops were killed on Wednesday when Tamil separatists beat back a military offensive in the island’s north, the rebels said, while placing their own losses at 16. However, the military rejected the claims and said only 38 government troops were killed and 84 wounded.
Sri Lanka government troops on Wednesday captured a strip of land from Tamil Tigers after heavy fighting across the island’s north left 42 rebels and a soldier dead, the Defence Ministry said. Security forces killed the guerrillas from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in separate clashes in the Mannar, Weli Oya and Jaffna districts since Tuesday evening, the ministry said.
Sri Lanka was hit by scathing criticism over its human rights record on Thursday, with its government fingered over hundreds of ”disappearances” and an influential panel storming off the island. The move is a major blow to the image of the island’s government, which pulled out of a truce with Tamil Tiger rebels in January.
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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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/ 10 January 2008
Monsoon flooding has forced more than 30Â 000 people in eastern Sri Lanka from their homes, with many taking refuge in temporary shelters like huts, schools and mosques, officials said on Thursday. Flooding and ensuing mass displacement are common in Sri Lanka, fuelled by monsoon rains.
Sri Lanka has increased its tight security arrangements for members of Parliament following the death of a Cabinet minister in a suspected Tamil Tiger bomb attack. The number of bodyguards and vehicles assigned to lawmakers was stepped up after Tuesday’s bombing outside the capital killed Nation Building Minister DM Dassanayake.
Nordic ceasefire monitors began wrapping up their six-year mission to Sri Lanka on Friday after the government scrapped a truce with the Tamil Tigers, and their mandate, amid a chorus of international concern. The government formally notified mediator Norway late on Thursday it was giving a stipulated 14-day notice period to end the truce.
Police and security forces went on alert across Sri Lanka on Thursday, hours after the government announced its withdrawal from a tattered ceasefire with Tamil Tiger rebels, security officials said. The already tight security in the capital was further strengthened one day after suspected rebels set off a roadside bomb that killed five and wounded 28.
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/ 16 December 2007
British-born science fiction author Arthur C Clarke, who turns 90 on Sunday, says all he wishes for is peace in his adopted home Sri Lanka where he has lived for the past five decades. Sri Lanka’s most celebrated guest resident since 1956, Clarke said he had sadly watched a bitter ethnic conflict dividing his adopted country.
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/ 1 November 2007
Sri Lankan troops killed 31 Tamil Tigers fighters in a series of clashes in the north of the island, as warplanes bombed rebel training camps on Thursday, the military said. Two soldiers were also killed and 17 wounded in the clashes with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
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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.
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/ 11 September 2007
Norway will reduce its direct aid to Ethiopia by about one-third after Addis Ababa expelled six Norwegian diplomats, Development Aid Minister Erik Solheim said on Tuesday, though he said it was for purely logistical reasons. ”We want to have a good relationship with Ethiopia,” Solheim told foreign correspondents in Oslo.