Sri Lanka troops hailed as Tamil Tigers ‘capital’ taken

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.

But in a sign the rebels retained their ability to strike back, a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide attacker on a motorcycle detonated a bomb near the air force headquarters in the heart of Colombo during yesterday afternoon’s rush hour, killing two airmen, police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekara said.

The attacker, who was targeting troops as they left work, wounded 30 other people, including nine airmen, he said.

The blast pierced the festive mood that had swept across the capital after President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced the fall of Kilinochchi in a nationally televised speech.

“Our brave and heroic troops have fully captured Kilinochchi, which was considered the main bastion of the LTTE,” he said, referring to the rebels by their formal name, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. “For the last time, I call upon the LTTE to lay down their arms and surrender.”

Across Colombo, people lit firecrackers, danced in the streets and waved Sri Lankan flags.

Kilinochchi held great symbolic value as the centre of the Tamil Tigers’ de facto state and its capture by government forces for the first time in a decade was sure to badly damage the rebels’ morale. The rebels used the town as their headquarters and created structures for an independent state, such as police, courts and tax offices.

But the rebel-affiliated TamilNet website said the Tamil Tigers had moved their headquarters further to the northeast before the town fell. Kilinochchi does not lie along a key crossroads or house major rebel bases or armouries, and military analysts said its strategic value was not great.

Rebel officials were not immediately available for comment, but they have said in the past that they would fight on even if Kilinochchi fell.

The rebels have fought since 1983 to create an independent homeland in the north and east for Tamils, who have suffered decades of marginalisation by successive governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority. The conflict has killed more than 70,000 people.

The US, EU and other nations have called for a political solution to the crisis, saying that warfare will not resolve the deep, underlying tensions between the Tamil and Sinhalese communities that created the violence in the first place.

The army first captured Kilinochchi in 1996, but lost it in a rebel counterattack in 1998.

The government has predicted over the last two months that the town was about to fall. But the rebels built a 10.5 mile (17 kilometre) -long earth and moat fortification, and fierce resistance from the guerrillas and pounding monsoon rains made it difficult for government forces to advance. The battles reportedly killed hundreds of fighters.

Troops entered Kilinochchi yesterday, said a military spokesman. Senior military officials said their forces met only minimal resistance once in the town, an apparent sign that the rebels had withdrawn and retreated to their jungle bases, analysts said.