State radio: Sri Lankan rebels trapped in single district
9/12/2008 16:43
Tamil Tiger rebels have been trapped in a single district in Sri Lanka's
Northern Province, the state radio said today.
Sri Lanka Broadcasting
Corporation quoted defense officials as saying that Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) rebels are now entrapped in the Mullaithivu district.
The radio
said the military's advancing 59th division was responsible for pushing the
rebels into Mullaithivu through a series of successful attacks against the
rebels in their once administrative headquarters Kilinochchi.
The radio added
that the Army has called upon the rebel cadres to surrender in the face of the
military's relentless onslaught against the LTTE.
At least three rebels had
already given themselves up to the military in the north. All facilities for
such surrenders had already been made, the radio maintained.
Sri Lanka's
military which recorded a series of victories against the rebels last year in
the Eastern Province have now proceeded to gain territory over the rebels in the
north.
The government says it would only be a matter of time before the
LTTE's over two-decade-old rebellion to set up a separate homeland for minority
Tamils would be completely eliminated.
The LTTE has been fighting for a
separate state in the north and east since July 1983, when organized mobs from
the majority Sinhala community killed a large number of minority Tamils living
in the south and also destroyed their homes and economic interests.
More than
70,000 people have been killed in the island's civil war -- one of the longest
in Asia.
Xinhua
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