Sri Lanka's president today urged the military to win over the Tamil people and to ensure they live without "fear or suspicion".

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 LANKA’S president declared his country “liberated from separatist terror” as state television broadcast images of the Tamil Tiger rebel leader’s body after it was recovered from the battlefield.

Sri Lanka's president declared his country "liberated from separatist terror" today as state television showed the body of the Tamil Tiger rebel leader killed by troops.

Burma risks global isolation because its continued oppression of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned today.

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 President Mahinda Rajapaksa said today his country has militarily defeated the Tamil Tiger 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.

THOUSANDS of civilians braved rebel fire yesterday to break out of Sri Lanka’s war zone, the military said, as health workers abandoned the only hospital in the area – leaving hundreds of wounded behind – because of unrelenting shelling.

Thousands of civilians braved rebel fire today to break out of Sri Lanka’s war zone, the military said, as health workers abandoned the only hospital in the area – leaving hundreds of wounded behind – because of unrelenting shelling.

The United Nations condemned both sides in Sri Lanka’s war zone today after artillery shells tore through a hospital packed with civilians for a second day, killing at least 50, setting an ambulance ablaze and forcing medical staff to huddle in bunkers for safety.

Yes, there is public feeling about the Palestinians and their rotten deal. I’ve never heard Chechnya being discussed on the DART, whereas I have heard Israel being trashed on buses as well as at smart dinner parties. Besides, who’s ever heard of a “Sri Lanka out of Tamil Eelam” march through Cork or calls for a boycott of Russia?

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.

Two days of shelling in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone killed at least 430 civilians – and probably as many as 1,000 – a government doctor said today.

AN overnight artillery barrage in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone killed at least 378 civilians and wounded more than 1,100, a government doctor said yesterday, calling it the bloodiest day he had seen in the army’s offensive against the Tamil Tiger rebels.

Sri Lanka’s separatist rebels have asked Britain and France to continue pushing for a ceasefire in the island’s civil war after the two European nations’ foreign ministers failed to secure a halt in the fighting to allow civilians to evacuate.

Artillery shells hit a makeshift hospital in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone today, killing at least 64 civilians, a government doctor said.

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.

Facing imminent battlefield defeat, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels have declared a unilateral ceasefire and called on the government to halt its offensive to spare the tens of thousands of civilians trapped by the fighting.

Tens of thousands of civilians trapped in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone are facing starvation, the Tamil Tiger rebels warned today as the UN sent its top humanitarian official to assess the crisis.

HUNDREDS who fled intense fighting in Sri Lanka’s war zone were awaiting evacuation from this tiny coastal village yesterday as the UN reported that nearly 6,500 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the past three months.

SRI LANKA pleaded for international help yesterday after Doctors Without Borders warned that civilian casualties are rising rapidly in the country’s war zone despite the exodus of more than 100,000 people.

Thousands more civilians fled Sri Lanka’s war zone today as troops pushed deeper into the Tamil Tiger rebels’ sliver of remaining territory.

Tens of thousands of civilians fled Sri Lanka's northern war zone ahead of the government's deadline today for separatist Tamil rebels to surrender.

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.

Sri Lanka’s military said today troops had rescued more than 5,000 civilians from the small sliver of territory in the north where remaining Tamil rebels were making their last stand.

A former rebel leader whose defection helped Sri Lanka push the Tamil Tigers to the brink of defeat has joined the ruling party and been named a government minister.

SRI Lanka’s prime minister yesterday rejected calls for a ceasefire from donor countries concerned by reports of growing civilian casualties in the South Asian nation’s civil war and instead demanded the Tamil Tiger rebels’ unconditional surrender.

Cluster bombs hit the last functioning hospital in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone where Tamil Tiger rebels are fighting a last-gasp battle for survival, the United Nations 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.

THE United Nations said yesterday that “many” civilians have been killed in recent fighting in Sri Lanka’s civil war and called the situation for thousands of displaced people trapped in the northern conflict zone a crisis.

Sri Lanka’s military declared a “safety zone” to enable 250,000 trapped civilians to cross into government-controlled territory from the diminishing area held by Tamil Tiger rebels in the war-torn north.

The Sri Lankan government officially outlawed the Tamil Tiger rebel group, ruling out the possibility of restarting peace talks to end a quarter of a century of civil war.

Sri Lankans raised flags and held a moment of silence today in honour of the military, as troops pushed deeper into rebel-held territory in the north in their offensive aimed at crushing the Tamil Tigers and ending the 25-year-old civil war in the country.

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

A rebel-affiliated website said today a pre-emptive strike against Sri Lankan troops killed 60 soldiers close to the Tamil Tigers northern headquarters.

Sri Lanka’s navy sank a Tamil Tiger ship and four smaller attack boats in a battle that killed 20 rebels off the north-eastern coast early today, the army said.

A bomb blast blamed on separatist Tamil Tigers wounded 45 people in Sri Lanka’s capital today.

A BOMB ripped through part of a packed passenger train during evening rush hour yesterday, killing eight people and wounding 70 others near the Sri Lankan capital.

A bomb blamed on Tamil Tiger separatists ripped through a packed passenger train today killing seven people and wounding 70 others near the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo.

TEN people were killed and 86 wounded yesterday in a suicide bomb attack on a bus carrying riot police in the Sri Lankan capital Columbo.

Scattered gunbattles and a roadside bomb blast in Sri Lanka’s embattled north killed 17 Tamil separatists and three soldiers in two days of violence, the military said today.