Sri Lanka

Government reports rapid advance in rebel territory

Article published on the 2009-01-15 Latest update 2009-01-15 16:10 TU

Burial in northern Sri Lanka of civilians caught in crossfire January 12, 2009.
REUTERS/Stringer

The Sri Lankan defence ministry reports further gains in its nine-month offensive against the rebel group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Government troops are reported to have taken another village and airstrip on Thursday.

Ground battles are escalating across the region according to the defence ministry. Security forces have been claiming one success after another, correspondent Amal Jayasinghe in Colombo told RFI. "It's perhaps the first time in more than a decade that the military has gained this kind of ground."

The government troops were reported to have taken their fifth jungle air-strip on Thursday, in what is a rapid advance on areas in the north once controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).  The defence ministry said its soldiers had captured the air strip at Iranamadu, south of the Tamil Tigers' former political capital of Kilinochchi.

However, none of the light planes used by the LTTE were recovered. The Tigers are believed to have five Czech-built Zlin-143 aircraft. The rebels last launched an air attack early in September, when they bombed a military base.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said troops also captured Dharmapuram village, in an area where the soldiers had apparently never set foot before.

The air force said it had carried out three bombing raids in the Mullaittivu region. The defence ministry has not given details of casualties of fighting in Mullaittivu on Wednesday. Mullaittivu is their main military base on the northeast coast

"The rebels seem to be pushed deeper and deeper into jungle which would mean their control over what was a vast area is now crumbling... The LTTE has some three hundred thousand people living in the areas still under its control and the fighting could yet go on for while," said Jayasinghe.

Sri Lanka's government pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered truce with the rebels a year ago, and stepped up its bid to dismantle the LTTE's northern mini-state. The LTTE took up arms in the early 1970s in a bid to win a separate homeland for the Tamil-speaking minority which it says suffered discrimination in all walks of life in Sri Lanka.