THE Tamil Tigers have officially acknowledged that their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was killed a week ago by Sri Lankan government troops, according to a statement from the rebels.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to parliament today, declaring that his country had been “liberated” from terrorism after defeating the Tamil Tiger rebels on the battlefield.

THE Tamil Tiger rebels admitted defeat in their 25-year-old war with the Sri Lankan government yesterday, offering to lay down their guns as government forces swept across their last strongholds in the northeast.

The Tamil Tiger rebels admitted defeat in their 25-year-old war with the Sri Lankan government today, offering to lay down their guns as government forces swept across their last strongholds in the northeast.

Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger leaders remained at large today after the president declared victory in his nation’s quarter-century civil war with the rebels.

SRI LANKAN troops advanced on the Tamil Tigers yesterday and 5,000 civilians fled the shrinking war zone, signalling an end to Asia’s longest modern war.

Sri Lankan today forces battled to take complete control of the country’s coastline and surround the reeling Tamil Tigers in a final push to destroy the rebel group and end the country’s civil war, the military said.

THE United Nations yesterday said attacks in Sri Lanka that killed hundreds were the bloodbath it had long feared, while the Tamil Tigers and government traded blame ahead of UN Security Council talks about the war.

SRI LANKA’S government dropped leaflets across the northern war zone yesterday urging civilians to flee the fighting amid accusations the military pounded the area with artillery shells that killed at least 10 civilians.

SRI LANKA’S Tamil rebels said yesterday that 1,000 civilians died in a government raid on their territory that the military says freed thousands of noncombatants from the war zone. The military denied the accusation.

SRI LANKA yesterday gave the Tamil Tigers 24 hours to surrender or die after troops breached a huge earthen defence and unleashed an exodus of tens of thousands of civilians held there by the rebels, the military said.

Civilians are being used as human shields by rebels in war-torn areas of Sri Lanka, Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin said today.

Hundreds of sick and wounded people are stranded in a makeshift hospital in war-wracked northern Sri Lanka, the Red Cross said today as it urged the government and Tamil Tiger rebels to let the patients out of the conflict zone.

Three artillery barrages struck a hospital in Sri Lanka’s chaotic war zone, slamming into its paediatrics ward and its women’s wing and killing nine patients, the Red Cross said today.

Sri Lanka’s president today urged the Tamil Tiger rebels to allow the estimated 250,000 civilians trapped in the northern war zone to flee to safety following reports of heavy casualties among non-combatants stuck in the shrinking territory.

GOVERNMENT forces captured the Tamil Tigers’ de facto capital in northern Sri Lanka yesterday, dealing a devastating blow to the rebels’ quarter-century fight for an independent state, the president said.

The Tamil Tigers’ capital in northern Sri Lanka was captured by government forces today, dealing a devastating blow to the rebels’ quarter-century fight for an independent state, the country’s

SRI LANKA’S elusive Tamil rebel supremo was wounded in an air strike last month by security forces shortly after his annual policy broadcast, a privately run newspaper reported yesterday.

Sri Lanka’s military launched a new offensive against the Tamil Tigers rebels on the island’s north-west, a military spokesman said today.

A Sri Lankan air force raid on a Tamil rebel training base in the island’s north may have killed or wounded as many as 70 guerrillas, the Defence Ministry said today.

A roadside bomb tore through a civilian bus in northern Sri Lanka today, killing seven people and wounding 26, the army said, blaming Tamil Tiger rebels for the attack.

TAMIL Tiger rebels carried out their first air raid yesterday, bombing Sri Lanka’s main military base in a daring night-time mission that forced the closure of the island’s only international airport.

Armed police guarded the office of Dutch aid group ZOA Refugee Care in the Sri Lankan capital today after angry Buddhist monks stormed into the building and accused the group of aiding Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said.

The Sri Lankan government today said it has appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross and foreign ceasefire monitors to persuade the Tamil Tiger rebels to help create a safe haven for an estimated 35,000 refugees caught in ongoing violence in the east.

A Norwegian peace envoy today postponed his visit to the northern stronghold of rebel Tamil Tigers after a request by the Sri Lankan government, a spokesman for the Norwegian Embassy said.

Tamil Tiger rebels rammed a truck loaded with explosives into a naval road convoy in central Sri Lanka today, killing at least 92 sailors who were going on leave, in what the military described as a cold-blooded massacre.

THE Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels have told Norwegian mediators they are willing to return to peace talks without conditions.

INTERNATIONAL truce monitors have warned it is likely hundreds of civilians have been killed so far this month in Sri Lanka’s worst violence since a 2002 ceasefire.

PAKISTAN’S top envoy has escaped a mine blast which killed seven people as Tamil Tiger rebels accused Sri Lanka of bombing an orphanage and killing 61 amid ferocious battles elsewhere.

Tamil Tiger rebels today said they had appealed to Norway for help in getting food and other essentials to 42,000 civilians trapped in fighting between the insurgents and Sri Lankan government forces.

Sri Lanka’s embattled president has called for direct peace talks with the top leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels, saying he has appointed a group of experts to prepare an outline of a possible solution to the decades-old ethnic conflict.

Martin McGuinness today urged the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels to prevent the island nation from slipping back to full-scale civil war, his party said.

A suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up next to a car carrying a top Sri Lankan general today, killing the third-highest ranking officer in the military and three other people.

The Sri Lankan government today appealed to the Tamil Tiger rebels to resume stalled peace talks before the country descends into full-scale war.

Sri Lankan troops stormed a village church where about 200 Tamil civilians sought shelter today, shooting indiscriminately and then attacking fishermen in an assault that killed five people and injured 47 more, witnesses said.

Sri Lankan air force jets and artillery pounded Tamil Tiger rebel positions in the country’s north and east for a second day today, peace monitors said ahead of a mass funeral for 64 people killed a bus bombing blamed on the insurgents.

The EU officially added Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels to its terror blacklist today, effectively freezing the group’s assets across the 25-nation bloc and hindering its ability to raise money for its armed cause in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka said today that Norwegian envoys will meet government and Tamil rebel leaders this week to try to revive the country’s peace process, amid spiralling violence and recriminations between the sides.

The killing of a senior Tamil Tiger rebel leader was intended to drag Sri Lanka into a “major war,” the Tigers said today as spiralling violence threatened to derail a tenuous truce.

The European Union has called a Tamil rebel attack on a Sri Lankan navy convoy a reckless move that puts the future of peace talks in serious jeopardy.

Tamil Tiger rebels have shelled Sri Lanka army positions and launched a deadly raid on a breakaway faction they say is backed by the Sri Lankan government, while a Tamil civilian was shot dead, officials said, heightening fears of a return to civil war.

Sri Lanka reopened roads linking government and Tamil Tiger rebel-held territory today after two days of airstrikes against guerrilla areas ended, but the threat of a return to civil war remained amid continuing bloodshed.

Mine explosions killed five government military personnel today, and police found five decapitated bodies dumped in a rubber plantation, as violence that has pushed Sri Lanka to the brink of civil war showed no signs of letting up.

SRI LANKA’S military unleashed airstrikes and mortar attacks yesterday at areas controlled by Tamil Tiger insurgents, who said that 15,000 people had fled the second day of violence sparked by a suspected rebel suicide bombing.