Lanka calls off Jaffna offensive

The military did not give any reason for calling off the fight for the highway. In a tersely worded statement, the military said it had successfully completed three phases of its offensive but it did not say if it would resume the fighting later. The military now controls 40 km of the 70 km highway.

The government had come under increasing criticism from newspapers and opposition politicians over the offensive, especially after it postponed local elections in July saying it could not provide security for the polls since troops were engaged in the fight for the highway.

Theoperation aimed to capture the highway which would link the isolated Jaffna peninsula with the rest of the government-held area. Jaffna, the Tamil heartland, was wrested from the rebels in May 1996, but its 500,000 people have since been supplied by sea.

But repeated counterattacks by the guerrillas caused heavy casualties among government troops and brought the advance to a standstill. A fresh assault was launched on Friday in the northeastern Mullaithivu district using troops who had taken part in the earlier offensive, said Major Kumar Dewage, a military spokesman.

Nine guerrillas were killed as soldiers captured the rebel-held town of Odduchuddan on Friday, Dewage said. Eight soldiers were wounded. Odduchuddan is on the 50-km stretch which links the government-held town of Mankulam to Mullaithivu, the largest rebel controlled town. It is 20 km east of Mankulam, the last town captured during the highway offensive. About 500 Tamil civilians were in the town when it was taken.

More than 11,500 Tamilcivilians fled the Odduchuddan area, as government artillery and jet bombers pounded rebel defences near the town, the guerrillas said in a statement faxed from their London office. One civilian was killed.

Odduchuddan has been controlled by the guerrillas since they captured it in June 1990. The guerrillas are fighting for a homeland in the northeast for the country’s minority ethnic Tamils, who say they are discriminated by the majority Sinhalese who control the government and military. More than 56,000 people have been killed in the war.