AP News, March 9th, 2007
Sri Lankan ground troops, backed by artillery, captured three Tamil Tiger bases in the northeast in a major military operation that began Thursday and ended Friday morning, the Defense Ministry said.
"We have forced the terrorists to flee from the these three bases," military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said. There were between 100 to 150 rebels in the bases, Samarasinghe said, noting the rebels suffered heavy casualties but not providing a number.
Trincomalee District _ where the bases were located _ has a strategic port and serves as a base for the Sri Lankan navy and a major sea supply route to 40,000 Sri Lankan troops stationed in Jaffna peninsula. The rebel bases were located in areas that could threaten the road supply routes to the port.
The rebels, formally known as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, admitted that Sri Lankan troops were there.
"We had hundreds of bases in that area, many were closed years back, some were closed recently," Rasiah Ilanthirayan, the rebel spokesman, said from the insurgents' headquarters in Kilinochchi.
The new military offensive coincided with reports that thousands of villagers were fleeing from Tamil Tiger rebel-held areas in east, fearing new fighting between the guerrillas and government troops.
At least 13,685 Tamil refugees have crossed into government-held territory from rebel-controlled areas in the past two weeks in Batticaloa District, Samarasinghe said.
The refugees fear their villages will become battlegrounds, as fighting between the military and rebels intensifies.
About 4,000 people have died in escalating violence in Sri Lanka since late 2005, when a Norwegian-brokered 2002 cease-fire faltered, European cease-fire monitors say. About 65,000 people were killed before the truce was signed.
The rebels have been fighting since 1983 to create a separate state in the north and northeast for the country's ethnic Tamil minority, following decades of discrimination by the Sinhalese majority.
