LTTE faces defeat as Kilinochchi falls

LTTE CORNERED: Kilinochchi fall is major triumph for Sri Lankan President. Mahinda Rajapaksa.

    

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New Delhi: Sri Lankan defence forces claimed their biggest victory in the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on Friday taking the rebel group's headquarters in Kilinochchi.

Even as the government was announcing it had isolated the rebel group, there was another suicide bombing in the capital Colombo.

However, the fall of Kilinochchi has proved to be a rare moment of triumph for Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa and has brought some good news in the New Year from the war in the north.

"Our troops have taken control of Kilinochchi. People had given me the mandate to unify the country," said Rajapaksa.

The psychological impact of the victory cannot be underestimated as Kilinochchi has been the political and administrative capital of the LTTE for the last decade.

Now the rebels are being squeezed by army columns advancing southward from Paranthan. The army is also pursuing the rebels from the west and from the south pushing the LTTE cadres deeper into the Vanni jungles in Mullaitivu.

Rajapaksa held out the olive branch to the rebels asking them to surrender and appealed to the Tamil community in Tamil.

"This should not be seen as the victory of one race over another. This is a victory for the whole of Sri Lanka," he said.

With Kilinochchi's fall, the army has taken complete control of the A-9 highway that connects Colombo to Jaffna, which will allow troop movement and supplies being sent from north to south via land route.

The rebel website Tamilnet has admitted pulling out of Kilinochchi and claims that one Sri Lankan airman has been killed.

But the LTTE registered continuing defiance in its trademark manner when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the air force headquarters in Colombo killing two people and injuring 30.

Clearly, the fall of Kilinochchi marks a critical phase in the war in the north but the rebels appear determined to fight to the last man, last round or cyanide capsule.