Lanka captures last LTTE stronghold

Dealing a body blow to the beleaguered Tamil Tigers,Sri Lankan troops on Sunday captured the garrison town of Mullaittivu...

Dealing a body blow to the beleaguered Tamil Tigers,Sri Lankan troops on Sunday captured the garrison town of Mullaittivu,the last urban stronghold of the LTTE,with the military asserting that the 25-year-long ethnic conflict was now 95 per cent over.

We have completely captured Mullaittivu, a beaming Sri Lankan Army Chief Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka said in a nationally televised address to the nation to announce the recapture of the strategic rebel military base after 12 years. With the fall of Mullittivu,the LTTE loses its last major stronghold in the once-rebel dominated north and now remains boxed in a tiny patch of jungle in the coastal Mullaittivu district.

The military had captured the rebels administrative capital of Kilinochchi earlier this month. The troops fought their way into the town amid fierce resistance by LTTE this morning and captured it after pitched battles with groups of rebels. With this,the 25-year-long civil war was 95 per cent over,the army chief said as the state-run TV beamed footage of celebrations and bursting of crackers by people.

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President Mahinda Rajapaksa has congratulated the Lankan troops for their latest success. Many of the remaining rebel fighters,along with a large number of civilians,were believed to be hiding in the nearby jungles of the northeast. Fonseka had earlier said the army has not detected many bunkers in Mullaittivu jungles that would enable the LTTE to prolong the offensive.

Troops had launched an attack on boats across the Nanthikandal lagoon and entered Mullaittivu Sunday morning,the military earlier cited battlefield sources as saying. The town,situated in a narrow stretch of land between Nanthikandal lagoon and the Indian Ocean,fell to the rebels in 1996 when the government lost nearly 1,000 of its soldiers in fighting. Since then,the LTTE had established its main military base there other than the Sea Tiger headquarters.

The LTTE has been losing territory to government forces since July 2007. Other than Kilinochchi,it has also lost control over the Elephant Pass recently,giving the government total control over the Jaffna Peninsula. The latest success for the army came a day after the rebels blasted a dam in Mullaittivu to halt the armys advances. Troops had on Saturday also thwarted an LTTE abortive mission to breach the military forward defences,destroying three rebel boats east of Dharmapuram.

The LTTE has been fighting since 1983 to create a separate homeland for ethnic minority Tamils. The government had last year withdrawn from a 2002 truce with the LTTE and vowed to crush the rebels.