83 killed in fierce Lankan clashes
Sri Lanka's military said yesterday it was moving closer to the northern headquarters of the Tamil Tigers, as fierce clashes in different locations left more than 83 dead.
The main battle lines were around 11km west of Kilinochchi, with the latest fighting on Wednesday leaving at least 40 rebels and 10 soldiers dead, the defence ministry said.
The military said they captured areas around a major irrigation tank.
"Confident troops bravely resisted and directed hard blows on the enemy and chased them away," the ministry said.
Elsewhere, the military said they killed 32 rebels for the loss of one soldier on Wednesday.
The latest fighting raised the number of rebels killed by troops since January to 6,637, while 646 soldiers have died in combat, according to the ministry tally.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) did not comment on the claims.
But the LTTE accused army commandos of setting off a roadside mine on Thursday targeting a passenger bus inside rebel territory, killing three civilians and wounding five, the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website said.
Security forces are now trying to take control of the rebels' political capital of Kilinochchi for the first time in 10 years.
The rebels have warned that the large Wanni region, which comprises Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu towns, could turn into a mass graveyard for government troops.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse said this week that security forces hope to capture Kilinochchi by December. The army ejected the rebels from the east in July 2007.
The defence ministry also said Thursday that its navy had destroyed a rebel boat in a sea battle off the northern coast of Nachchikudha.
The Tigers have been fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the island's north and east since 1972.
Earlier international aid workers on Wednesday evacuated Sri Lanka's north, where government forces are pursuing a major offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said.
The pull-out, demanded by the island's authorities for security reasons, prompted fears for the fate of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians displaced by the military onslaught.
The Sri Lankan government said its soldiers were just over five kilometres (three miles) from Kilinochchi, the political capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
"The fighting just kept getting worse," United Nations spokesman Gordon Weiss told AFP. "We pulled out all of our 35 staff and most of our equipment."
Other international aid agencies have also completed evacuating their international staff, said Jeevan Thiyagarajah, spokesman for the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies.
"International agencies have now ceased to operate from the Wanni, except for the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross)," Thiyagarajah said.
Authorities have allowed only the ICRC -- which supervises a civilian crossing point and carries out body exchanges for the military and the rebels -- to remain in the north.
The Sri Lankan government last week ordered international aid agencies out of the region, with officials saying Colombo did not want to be embroiled in a scandal if aid workers were killed.
State security forces were widely blamed for the August 2006 massacre of 17 local employees of the French aid agency Action Against Hunger in the eastern town of Muttur.
"We are unable to guarantee their safety any more. That is why they have to leave," Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse told foreign correspondents based in Colombo this week.
But the pull-out leaves an estimated 160,000 people displaced by the escalating fighting in the rebel-held districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu without international assistance.
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