SL jets bomb Tamil Tigers as fighting flares

Colombo, Jan 17: Sri Lankan air force jets pounded a suspected Tamil Tiger base in the island's northeast today, the military said, as troops sought to wrest control of a rebel-held area.

Witnesses saw jets roar from their base north of the capital Colombo to attack the suspected base near the village of Verugal where rebels control a dwindling pocket of land in the far northeastern districts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa.

The Tigers were not available for comment and there were no immediate details of any damage or casualties.

''To neutralise the attacks against the army, the air force this morning ... took selected targets west of Verugal,'' said air force spokesman Group Captain Ajantha de Silva.

The military also paraded five Tamil youths in front of the media, saying they were Tigers who had surrendered, but there was no independent confirmation of their identities.

The army said it captured a stretch of the Tigers' defences along a battlefront in the east yesterday and killed around 30 rebels, but the Tigers denied it and said 12 of their own fighters died and that they killed 45 army troops.

The military said four soldiers were killed during yesterday's fighting, which came as the government sought to evict the Tigers from territory they control in the east under the terms of a tattered 2002 truce.

Verugal is at the northern end of a 20-kms long pocket of rebel-held territory around 240 km northeast of Colombo.

An estimated 10,000-15,000 Tamil civilians have been trapped by fighting in the town of Vakarai at the southern end, but 20,000 others have fled to government areas in recent weeks.

Foreign aid groups are clamouring for access to the area, which the government has denied.

The Tigers resumed their fight for an independent state for minority Tamils in the north and east after the government rejected their demands for a separate homeland and analysts fear this new chapter in a war that has killed more than 67,000 people since 1983 could escalate.

REUTERS

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