Sri Lanka Wiping Out Tamil Tigers
Update, 16 May 2009:
Click for updated headlines about Tamil Tigers "Defeated"
The "tigers" of Sri Lanka are endangered - finally. Not cats but terrorists, the Tamil Tigers are a terrorist group that has fought a bloody war against the Sri Lankan government for 26 years. Now, the government is engaged in a big push to wipe out the rebels in a bloody and frantic campaign.
"Sri Lankan troops have captured the last patch of coastline held by the Tamil Tigers and the rebels would shortly be left without any territory, a top military source said" - Agence-France Presse
Over the years, Tamil Tiger bombings, assassinations and other atrocities have occasionally spilled onto mainland Asia, to nearby India. Since 1983, more than 70,000 people have died in the on-again-off-again civil strife in Sri Lanka, which became independent from Britain in 1948. (See a timeline of the civil war here.)
Sri Lankan troops seized the entire coastline for the first time in its 25-year war with the Tamil Tigers, the military said, cutting off escape for separatist rebels now facing total destruction. Two divisions marching from north and south sealed the coast, while a third completed the encirclement of the Tigers and their leaders, now trapped in barely a square kilometre and without their umbilical access to the sea. Full Story at ABC News Australia.
The Sri Lankan strategy seems to be working, according to an Agence-France Presse report in the National Post (Canada):
"They are slowly giving up. They are blowing up whatever arms and ammunition they have," Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said of the remnants of the once-powerful separatist Tamil Tiger army. A military spokesman said about 10,000 civilians had managed to flee to government areas on Friday, and that there was now "hardly anybody left" in the rebel zone on the northeast coast. Full Report at National Post...
RELATED:
Sri Lanka's Civil War: Not Over Yet - TIME
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