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| Fierce fighting claims 67 lives in Sri Lanka |
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s military battled towards the Tamil Tigers’ headquarters in the north of the island and killed 59 killed insurgents, the military said on Monday. Eight soldiers also died in Sunday’s fighting, which followed two days of clashes last week that were among the bloodiest since the military ratcheted up its advance against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) three months ago.
“Troops killed 59 LTTE terrorists and 31 were wounded from Sunday’s fighting,” a military spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. “Eight soldiers also died and 28 were wounded from the fighting.”
The rebels could not be reached for comment, and independently verifying the figures is difficult because the military bars most journalists from the battle zones. Both sides routinely inflate losses and victories to their advantage.
The air force also kept up a series of air strikes with attack helicopters and jets, including four sorties on Sunday that struck various Tiger gathering points, the military said without giving details of casualties.
On Friday and Saturday, at least 53 rebels and five soldiers were killed in fighting at various places along a jagged frontline that stretches from coast-to-coast. That followed two of the bloodiest days in months in which more than 130 people were killed.
The military has said it is within 5.5-km of the LTTE’s headquarters town of Kilinochchi, 330-km north of the capital Colombo. Seizing that town would be a strategic and symbolic victory for President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government, which in January officially threw out a ceasefire both sides had ignored and vowed to wipe out the LTTE and end a war raging since 1983.
Pro-rebel website www.tamilnet.com said heavy fighting erupted along the southwest frontiers of Kilinochchi district on Sunday with heavy artillery fire but gave no other details. The Tigers are on US, EU and Indian terrorism lists and have fought for more than three decades to establish a separate homeland for Sri Lanka’s ethnic minority Tamils. They have in the process silenced more moderate Tamil political voices.
Sri Lanka has been ruled since independence from Britain in 1948 by governments led by the Sinhalese majority, 75 per cent of the nation’s 21 million people.
Meanwhile, thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians lined up at schools and Hindu temples in Sri Lanka’s capital to comply with an order requiring all who moved from the island’s north to reregister with the police.
Migrants from the north - which has been wracked by civil war for more than 25 years - have long had to register with police when they move to Colombo. But last week, police said that they needed to update their records to ensure security in the capital and that all who made the move in the past five years must register again. Police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekera said Thursday that the order would affect more than 100,000 people.
The overwhelming majority of those people are minority ethnic Tamils. Some complained that Sunday’s forced registration was unfair and unlawful. This is very wrong in a democratic country. We already have our registrations with the police so why should we do it again?” R. Gajendran told The Associated Press at his home in a predominantly Tamil neighborhood of the city.
The unemployed 28-year-old said he fled to Colombo to escape violence in his native Jaffna. Authorities have not said what will happen to those who are unable or refuse to reregister Sunday. Tamil Tigers have fought since 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils after a history of marginalization by successive governments controlled by majority ethnic Sinhalese.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
