Sri Lanka army moves to take last coastal strip from rebels

by Sanjay Jha | January 27, 2009 at 02:31 am

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Sri Lanka's Army Chief Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka has claimed after the capture of the LTTE's garrison town of Mullaitivu that 95 percent of the war against the Tigers was over.

In the meantime brushing aside the government claim about Prabhakarn, Rebels have said that the elusive Tamil Tigers chief Velupillai Prabhakaran is still in Sri Lanka and "giving leadership to our freedom struggle".

Sri Lankan forces have nearly recaptured the only stretch of coastline still held by LTTE.

Soldiers backed by tanks and air cover were battling to establish full control over the 30-kilometre (18 mile) stretch of coast, Brigadier Nandana Udawatte told a reporter on the scene.

"We are moving along the coast as well as to the north-west towards another pocket of Tiger resistance," he told journalists flown to Kumalamunai, a small settlement just south of Mullaittivu town that was captured Sunday.

The military planned to take journalists by road to Mullaittivu later Tuesday to highlight their success in driving the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) out of their military headquarters.

Udawatte said his troops had killed at least 2,000 Tamil Tiger rebels and wounded nearly 3,000 in the year-long battle to capture Mullaittivu.

The brigadier said the rebels had established three defence lines to protect Mullaittivu, but his men had surprised them by crossing a lagoon by boat.

"We also suffered casualties in overcoming their obstructions," he said. "They had set up a lot of mines to slow our advance. We recovered 35,779 mines in the past year."

The town of Kumalamunai was taken by troops on December 17 as they advanced towards Mullaittivu town, 15 kilometres (10 miles) further north.

Sri Lanka's army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka has expressed hopes of defeating the Tiger rebels completely by April.

The whereabouts of Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran is not known, but a spokesman for his LTTE was reported as saying that he was still in the Mullaittivu district and had vowed to fight back.