Air raid kills top Tamil tiger

The head of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers’ political wing was killed in a government airstrike today.

The death S.P. Tamilselvan, assumed by many to be the secretive guerrilla group’s second in command, will damage morale nearly two weeks after it stunned the government with a devastating attack on an air base.

“This is a message that we know their leaders’ location,” Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said. “This confirms that our information is very accurate.”

Another five rebel leaders were killed in the bombing.

In a separate attack, Sri Lankan jets attacked a camp belonging to the Black Tigers, the group’s suicide fighters, in Iranamadu in the rebel-held Kilinochchi district.

The suicide unit has been the target of repeated airstrikes since its attack on the Anuradhapura air base last week killed 14 soldiers, destroyed eight aircraft and left the government trying to explain how the rebels were able to infiltrate a key military facility.

The military initially gave no details of casualties from either strike, but later confirmed that Tamilselvan had been killed.

With the Tigers’ leader Velupillai Prabhakaran rarely seen publicly , Tamilselvan had become the rebel leadership’s link to the outside world.

He regularly held talks with peace envoys and diplomats, met with foreign aid workers and gave interviews to the few international journalists allowed by the government to cross into rebel-held territory in the north.

He headed the group’s delegation at the failed peace talks in Geneva last year.

The rebels have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, following decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese-controlled governments. More than 70,000 have been killed in the fighting.

Friday’s air attacks came a day after a series of ground battles near the rebels’ de facto state in the north killed 30 Tamil Tiger fighters and two soldiers, according to the military.