Sri Lanka fighting kills 22 Tamil rebels

by Sanjay Jha | September 8, 2008 at 02:14 am

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Fight between rebel Tamil tigers and the Sri Lankan air force (SLAF) have intensified. Sri Lankan air force launched several attacks including one on a sea tiger base in the last 24 hours destroying training camps and disrupting meetings of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres in the north. Air Force fighter jets with Chinese made F7, the Israeli-made Kfir and the Russian Mig 27 fighter aircraft as fighter arsenal launched air strikes at an identified LTTE recruit training centre located in the Mullaittivu district, where the ground forces are locked in pitched battle with the LTTE.

Earlier on Sunday morning the airforce launched air assaults at a pre-identified sea tiger camp named ‘Kadal’ located at Kavitharamunai, in Pooneryn, West of Kilinochchi.

Air force jets attacked a rebel bunker line in northern Sri Lanka on Monday morning as a new wave of fighting in the country's civil war killed 22 ethnic Tamil rebels, the military said.

The fighting was part of the military's recent offensive aimed at crushing the Tamil Tiger rebel group and seizing its de facto state in the northern jungles of this island nation.

In a strike in support of ground troops fighting in the rebel heartland of Kilinochchi, air force jets attacked a series of bunkers and other Tamil Tiger "strong points" along the front lines early Monday, the military said in a statement.

Mortar attacks and other battles between the two sides in Kilinochchi killed 11 rebels on Sunday, the military said. Battles in the Vavuniya and Welioya regions killed another 11 rebels, the military said.

With communication all but cut with the northern areas, rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan could not be reached for comment.

Independent verification of the fighting and casualties is difficult to obtain because most journalists are banned from the war zone. Both sides routinely exaggerate enemy casualties and underreport their own.

The rebels have been fighting for an independent state in the north and east since 1983, following decades of marginalization of ethnic Tamils by governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict.