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Sri Lankan military reports fighting with rebels
By RAVI NESSMAN,Associated Press Writer AP - Friday, November 28
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Heavy battles broke out between Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger fighters in the north, the military said Thursday, a day after a top official said the government would soon capture a vital rebel stronghold.
Battles erupted throughout the day Wednesday in Mullaitivu district, where the rebels are fighting to maintain the de facto state they lead in the north of this Indian Ocean island nation.
Government forces recovered the bodies of five rebel fighters, and some troops were wounded by mine attacks, the military said in a statement Wednesday.
The fight came as both sides waited for reclusive rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran to make his annual address to the Tamil people Thursday evening, a speech akin to a State of the Nation address. His supporters and foes will be watching to see how he explains the huge swaths of land the rebels have been forced to abandon in the face of an unrelenting government offensive in recent months.
Defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said Wednesday that government troops were on "the outskirts" of the rebels' administrative capital of Kilinochchi and that he expected the town to fall imminently.
Meanwhile, a new wave of violence has broken out in eastern Sri Lanka, raising fears the rebels were regrouping in a former stronghold the government captured last year.
A Hindu priest was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen early Thursday near his home on the grounds of a temple in the eastern district of Batticaloa, the military said.
On Wednesday, a police officer was wounded in a hand grenade attack, while two soldiers riding on a motorbike were killed by a roadside bomb the day before, the military said. Police commandoes in the area also reported killing five rebel fighters in two separate attacks Tuesday.
In addition, a powerful militia of rebel defectors has fractured into at least two warring groups, heightening the killings and chaos in the region.
The rebels have fought since 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils after decades of marginalization at the hands of successive governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority. More than 700,000 people have been killed in the violence.
The government has vowed to crush the rebels and end the war by the end of the year.
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