Lanka steps up air attacks after heavy ground battles

Sri Lankan war planes carried out attacks against suspected Tamil Tiger strongholds in the island's north yesterday as ground forces consolidated newly captured areas, the military said.
Fighter jets carried out several sorties over territory held by the Tigers and bombed a suspected rebel meeting place and a boat building facility, a military official said.
He said there were no immediate details of casualties but intercepts of rebel radio communications suggested they suffered heavy losses. There was no immediate comment from the Tigers.
The air raids came after a day of intense ground battles in the north of the island around the town of Kilinochchi, the besieged political capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Government forces consolidated their positions in northern Sri Lanka yesterday, a day after heavy fighting with Tamil Tiger rebels, the military said.
"Following confrontations that lasted from dawn to dusk with terrorists, troops expanded their defence line south of Adampan," the military said referring to a town west of Kilinochchi, the political capital of Tiger rebels.
The army had wrested control of the town of Mulliyawalai in the neighbouring district of Mullaittivu on Friday.
The pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website reported that the military had shelled the main hospital in Kilinochchi.
The shells landed in the hospital compound on Thursday, damaging three hospital buildings "and narrowly missing several hospital staff", the Tamilnet said.
The Tiger rebels are defending their besieged political capital against a massive Sri Lankan military offensive.
Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu are the two remaining big towns still under rebel control in the north of the island.
Neither side gave details of casualties from Friday's fighting.
In January the Sri Lankan government pulled out of a 2002 Norwegian-brokered truce with the rebels, who have been fighting since 1972 for a state for ethnic minority Tamils separate from the majority Sinhalese community.