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Rebels flee to jungle as Sri Lankan troops advance
AFP - 52 minutes ago
COLOMBO (AFP) - - Sri Lankan government troops on Monday pushed into the last pockets of jungle still held by the Tamil Tigers after capturing the rebels' last urban stronghold and military headquarters.
Soldiers overran Mullaittivu, a northeastern coastal town held by the Tigers for a decade, on Sunday -- three weeks after taking Kilinochchi, where the rebels had their own courts, police force and a bank.
Army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) now controlled just a "small strip" of land in the northeast and were completely cornered.
"We have cleared 95 percent of the work (to defeat the Tigers)," Fonseka said, as the island's government expressed confidence it would soon win one of Asia's longest-running civil wars wars after a massive military offensive.
"The end of terrorism is near and we will definitely win," Fonseka said.
Helicopter gunships attacked Tiger positions outside Mullaittivu after troops had taken control of the town, the defence ministry said in its latest update on its campaign .
There has been no comment from the rebels, and the battlefield claims cannot be verified as independent journalists are barred from travelling to the conflict zone.
Aid agencies and human rights workers are also banned from areas where the Sri Lankan military is active.
President Mahinda Rajapakse congratulated his troops, saying Sri Lankans wanted to pay "heartfelt tributes to the war heroes who have fought relentlessly to eradicate terrorism from our motherland."
The fate of LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran -- who has been leading a separatist war against Sri Lanka's ethnic Sinhalese majority since 1972 -- is unclear, with some suggesting he has already fled the island.
The Tamil Tigers were trained and armed by New Delhi in the early 1980s, but Prabhakaran is now wanted by India in connection with the 1991 murder of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The LTTE, which is listed by the European Union and United States as a terrorist organisation, has become infamous for its use of suicide bombers and child soldiers.
If the Tigers lose all their territory, they are widely expected to return to fighting a guerrilla war from hidden jungle bases.
Military officials say 50,000 government troops are now fighting fewer than 2,000 Tiger fighters.
Uncertainty also surrounds the fate of an estimated 150,000-250,000 ethnic Tamil civilians who are still trapped in the battle zone.
The rebels have accused government troops of firing indiscriminately at civilians, while the government says locals are being held hostage and used as "human shields."
Rajapakse said in a New Year's address that 2009 would be the year of "heroic victory" over the Tigers and an end to the war.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed since the conflict began but the government pulled out of an on-off ceasefire last year and launched a fresh campaign to crush the Tigers once and for all.
Rajapakse has promised a political solution to the island's long-running ethnic strife, but only once the rebels are defeated.
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