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Sri Lanka: President 'confident' of defeating Tamil militants
(AKI) - Sri Lanka was close to defeating the Tamil Tiger militants fighting for a separate homeland in the north of the country, according to President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Speaking to the media in Rome, Rajapaksa said government forces had "cleared" the eastern province and was now focused on the north."I am confident," Rajapaksa said of the armed forces' prospects. "We have cleared the eastern province, we have had elections." Now the president said the armed forces had made key gains in fighting members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the country's north. "We have got very close to their headquarters, we may be able to take over that too," he said. Sri Lanka's military said on Monday it had recaptured a key northern town near the Tamil Tigers' Kilinochchi stronghold. They said that troops on Sunday took Kokavil, 20 kilometres south of Kilinochchi, 18 years after it was seized by the insurgents. The pro-rebel TamilNet website has accused the air force of dropping cluster bombs at a camp for internally displaced people. On Thursday the Tigers' leader Velupillai Prabhakaran said that the government was living in "dreamland" if it expected outright military victory. Rajapaksa made a two-day unofficial visit to the Italian capital Rome where he met Pope Benedict XVI before flying to Turkey. Posted by: Fred 2008-12-02 |
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