SL troops enter LTTE stronghold Kilinochchi

Sri Lankan troops marched into the Tamil Tigers' de facto capital of Kilinochchi and the town is about to fall into government hands, an Sri Lankan troops fire artillery at LTTE rebels in Kilinochchi, official said on Friday.

"(The) fall of Kilinochchi soon will be a reality," said Defence Ministry spokesman and government minister Keheliya Rambukwella.

Sources from Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa's office said that troops had entered Kilinochchi from two locations and that fighting with rebels was going on.
Military sources said an announcement was expected soon from Rajapaksa.

"Troops are inside the town and they are mopping up things here and there," said a military source who asked not to be identified. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had no immediate comment.

The military has had a series of battlefield victories against the Tigers and vowed to defeat the group this year to end their more than 25-year separatist campaign.

The LTTE started fighting the government in 1983. It says it is battling for the rights of minority Tamils in the face of mistreatment by successive governments led by the Sinhalese majority since Sri Lanka won independence from Britain in 1948.

Government troops on Thursday captured Iranamadu junction, south of the LTTE's self-proclaimed capital of Kilinochchi and Paranthan town to the north.

The military said the capture of the two key rebel-held areas had paved the way for military to move into Kilinochchi for the first time in more than a decade.

Sri Lanka's military has been closing in on Kilinochchi since September. Over the past month, it has been assaulting Tiger defences encircling the town and both sides have claimed to have inflicted ever higher death tolls on the other.

It is nearly impossible to verify battlefield claims since both the government and the LTTE block independent media access to the war zone, and have repeatedly distorted figures to their advantage.