Sri Lanka captures Tigers' capital city

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

president said.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced the capture of Kilinochchi in a nationally televised speech, and called on the rebels to give up their fight.

“Our brave and heroic troops have fully capture 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 the capital of Colombo, people lit fireworks in celebration and waved Sri Lankan flags.

Strategically, Kilinochchi was not a particularly important target in Sri Lanka’s offensive against the rebels. But it 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 Tamil Tigers used the town as their political and military headquarters for the past 10 years and created structures for an independent state, such as a police, courts and tax offices.

“No more is this capital of its dream separate state the property of the LTTE,” Rajapaksa said.

The government has predicted repeatedly over the last two months that the town was about to fall. But the rebels built massive fortifications and put up fierce resistance.

Army troops appeared to have cleared the way into the town yesterday when they captured a key crossroad north of Kilinochchi that allowed them to close in from three directions.

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military officials said their forces met only minimal resistance once in the town, an apparent sign that the rebels had withdrawn and retreated to their jungle bases.

Recent government military offensives have forced the rebels out of much of their territory in the north of the Indian Ocean island nation, and President Rajapaksa promised to crush the rebel group and end the civil war in the new year. The government had previously vowed to end the war by the end of 2008.

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.

Since renewed fighting flared three years ago, the government has driven the Tamil Tigers out of their strongholds in the east and forced them to retreat from much of their northern territory.