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Sri Lankan Army Captures Key Tamil Tiger Stronghold

By Anjana Pasricha
New Delhi
02 January 2009

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse says goverment forces have taken control of the capital of the Tamil Tiger rebels in the north of the country for the first time in a decade. The town of Kilinochchi has been a key target for the government, which has vowed to crush the rebels who have led a violent struggle for a quarter century to establish a Tamil homeland in the island nation.
The Sri Lankan army says troops entered Kilinochchi from two sides and seized key landmarks in the town on Friday after heavy fighting on the outskirts of the town.

The army has been advancing for months toward Kilinochchi, which is seen as a key prize for the government.

The government spokesman for defense, Keheliya Rambukwella,told VOA, rebel cadres have retreated from the town they controlled for over a decade, and mopping up operations are on.

Minister Rambukwella says wresting Kilinochchi from the rebels has been a huge goal for the government in the military campaign to defeat the Tamil Tigers.

"Their complete administration and infrastructure will be dismantled to great extent," he said. "Which means it is a huge setback and there will be very little left for them to activate their terror activities."

There is no independent verification of the extent of fighting inside the town.

Kilinochichi has been serving as the political and administrative headquarters of the Tamil Tigers, and they have established courts, police stations and a bank in the town.

The rebels controlled huge swathes of territory in the north, where they want to establish a separate Tamil homeland. But areas under their control have shrunk since the military began its campaign to evict them from their northern bases last year.

In 2007, the rebels had been forced out of their eastern bases.

Minister Rambukwella is optimistic that the Tamil Tigers, having lost the east and faced with heavy reverses in the north, will no longer be a major threat.

"There is total disarray within the organization. International support has receded," he added. "They know that this is not a battle that they could ever, ever win. It would be lunacy for them to again think they could get what they want through the barrel of the gun."

But analysts warn that the Tamil Tigers have regrouped after suffering huge reverses in the past. The Tamil Tigers are known as some of the fiercest guerrilla fighters in the world.

The rebel struggle for an independent Tamil homeland was triggered by complaints of discrimination by the country's Sinhalese majority against the ethnic Tamil minority. More than 60,000 people have died in the civil war.