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Sri Lankan troops inside last big Tiger town
Sun Jan 25, 2009 5:55am EST
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By Ranga Sirilal
COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan soldiers on Sunday fought their way into the last major town held by Tamil Tiger separatists and would soon take control of it, the military said.
The eastern port of Mullaittivu is one of the final targets of a military onslaught to end once and for all a 25-year war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels. The army has not set foot inside it since the Tigers seized it in 1996.
"The 59th Division entered Mullaittivu town a short while ago. It is a matter of time before they take full control of the area," defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told Reuters.
If the army takes the town, it will force the rebels to go back into the jungle and fight from their remaining defenses and bases in a scattered handful of villages.
The 59th Division has been battling up the eastern coast toward Mullaittivu for months, while other army units have fought to encircle the LTTE from the west and north.
"Heavy fighting is going on to negotiate the area," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.
The army has racked up a string of victories since the new year, including capturing the rebels' self-proclaimed capital of Kilinochchi and expelling them from the Jaffna Peninsula.
The Tigers are now surrounded in a wedge of jungle measuring less than 365 square km (141 square miles), down from the 15,000 square km they controlled when hostilities reignited in 2006, according to the Defense Ministry.
Aid agencies say about 230,000 civilians fleeing the fighting are trapped there. Rights groups and the government accuse the LTTE of keeping them as human shields.
At least 100 civilians were killed in artillery exchanges last week, according to a top government official working in the Tiger-controlled area.
The army set up a 32 square km safe zone inside the war zone, but said the LTTE had moved its artillery and heavy weapons inside it.
The LTTE, on U.S., EU, and Indian terrorist lists after years of suicide bombings and assassinations of politicians and rival Tamil figures, could not be reached for comment.
On Saturday, the military said the Tigers had blown up a dam to flood land and slow a rapid army advance. Soldiers also found two facilities for making bombs and landmines, with 4,000 detonators and 150 kg (330 lb) of explosives.
It is difficult to get a clear picture from the war zone, since both sides block independent media from entering it.
The LTTE seized Mullaittivu, a strategic harbor, in 1996 in a massive attack that killed more than 1,000 soldiers. Navy boats have already cordoned off the sea around it, but it had been the last remaining route for the LTTE to bring in weapons. Continued...
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