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| Sri Lanka |
| Sri Lankan Army seizes entire west coast from rebels |
| 2008-11-16 |
| Sri Lanka's military said troops seized the entire western coast of the Indian Ocean island on Saturday, capturing the key Pooneryn area where Tamil Tiger rebel artillery had kept soldiers at bay since 1993. With the military controlling Pooneryn, a strategic spit of land that runs parallel to the neck of the northern Jaffna Peninsula across a narrow lagoon, it will be in a position to strike the rebel capital of Kilinochchi from three sides. In one of Asia's longest-running insurgencies, at least 70,000 people have been killed in Sri Lanka since 1983. "We have completely taken over Pooneryn. We have gone up to the town, and control the roads from Pooneryn to Paranthan," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. The Defence Ministry said troops had encountered stiff resistance as they fought through marshlands south of Pooneryn and across the Paranthan junction overnight. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had no immediate comment. "We didn't find any artillery, because they must have taken those pieces away or hidden them," Nanayakkara said. Saturday's capture came after months of heavy fighting on the west coast. Surrender: Sri Lanka's president Saturday asked Tamil Tigers to surrender after troops claimed to have recaptured a strategically important town from Tiger rebels following months of heavy fighting. President Mahinda Rajapakse said in a televised address to the nation security forces wrested control of the town of Pooneryn and the main northwestern coastal route of A-32. "This morning the entire A-32 road and Pooneryn was captured by our security forces," the president said. "On this occasion, I ask (Tiger chief Velupillai) Prabhakaran to lay down and immediately come for talks." "The best thing he can do for the (Tamil) people in the north is to lay down arms and surrender," he said. Pooneryn had been a Tiger stronghold since 1993 when the rebels dislodged the main military base after killing some 700 soldiers in three days of intense battles. The rebels had used the coastal area to launch artillery strikes against a military airbase on the northern edge of the government-controlled Jaffna peninsula vulnerable to long-range attacks. The defence ministry described Saturday's capture of Pooneryn as the "greatest feat against terrorists" along the island's northwestern seaboard. The ministry said troops were closing in on the town of Kilinochchi, the political capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) further south. "Pitched battles are still going on in the area," the ministry said. "The terrorists are fast withdrawing" to the northwest. The ministry, however, has made repeated claims in recent months that Kilinochchi was about to fall. The air force deployed helicopter gun ships to pound suspected Tiger strongholds in the Jaffna peninsula Saturday morning in support of ground troops in the area, the military said. The latest reports came as the country's parliament was set to vote Saturday on a new war budget allocating a record 1.6 billion dollars for defence in 2009, up from 1.5 billion dollars this year. The territory held by the separatist Tiger rebels has shrunk sharply since the guerrillas lost the vast eastern province in July last year after months of heavy combat. Security forces have in recent months stepped up their offensive in a bid to capture Kilinochchi, the town where Tigers received visiting foreign dignitaries. With the fall of Pooneryn, the military has taken the northwestern seaboard of the island and is poised to open a new land route to the Jaffna peninsula, which had so far been supplied by sea and air routes. |
| Posted by:Fred |