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| Sri Lanka |
| Sri Lankan jets bomb Tiger bases as fighting flares |
| 2007-01-18 |
| Sri Lankan air force jets pounded a suspected Tamil Tiger base in the island’s northeast on Wednesday, the military said, as troops sought to wrest control of a rebel-held area. Witnesses saw jets roar from their base north of the capital Colombo to attack the suspected base near the village of Verugal where rebels control a dwindling pocket of land in the far northeastern districts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa. The Tigers were not available for comment and there were no immediate details of any damage or casualties. “To neutralise the attacks against the army, the air force this morning ... took selected targets west of Verugal,” said air force spokesman Group Captain Ajantha de Silva. The military also paraded five Tamil youths in front of the media, saying they were Tigers who had surrendered, but there was no independent confirmation of their identities. The army said it captured a stretch of the Tigers’ defences along a battlefront in the east on Tuesday and killed around 30 rebels, but the Tigers denied it and said 12 of their own fighters died and that they killed 45 army troops. |
| Posted by:Fred |