S.Lanka says kills 44 Tigers, captures rebel area
(Updates with fresh clashes, quotes, details)
By Ranga Sirilal
COLOMBO, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan troops have captured a section of rebel-held territory in the island's northwest and killed 44 Tamil Tigers, the military said on Wednesday, as a new chapter in a 25-year civil war intensifies.
Troops killed 38 Tigers in a series of confrontations in the war-battered north on Tuesday, and killed six more on Wednesday, the military said, adding the dead included an eastern Tiger leader called Shankar.
Troops captured a small chunk of rebel terrain in the northwestern district of Mannar on Tuesday, the military said, forging on with a declared campaign to evict the Tigers them from all terrain they control in the north, as they have in the east.
"We captured one square kilometre," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara. "To gain ground advantage ... we are applying pressure. Whenever possible we will confront them."
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who want to create an independent state in north and east Sri Lanka, were not immediately available for comment.
Pro-rebel Web site www.tamilnet.com said the Tigers resisted an army bid to advance across heavily-defended forward defence lines in the far northern Jaffna peninsula early on Wednesday, and that the army retreated.
Totting up death toll claims by both sides, around 150 people have been reported killed since the government announced last week it was formally scrapping a battered 2002 ceasefire pact.
Analysts say both sides tend to exaggerate enemy losses and play down their own. Independent accounts of what has happened are almost never available.
Tuesday's fighting came as suspected Tamil Tiger rebels assassinated a Sri Lankan minister with a roadside bomb between the capital and the island's only international airport, the second MP killed in a week. One of his security detail also died.
Another explosion shook a downtown area of the capital on Tuesday evening, when a bomb planted in a phone booth near the Hilton hotel in Colombo's business district detonated, but there were no casualties.
The government said on Wednesday it was beefing up security for MPs following the attacks.
"We will take action to provide the necessary extra security for members who have threats against them," W.J.M. Lokubandara, speaker of the house, told parliament.
He said the security details of all MPs would be doubled to four guards.
The government has vowed to wipe out the Tigers militarily, setting the stage for what many fear will be a bloody battle for the north as a death toll of around 70,000 people since the war erupted in 1983 climbs daily. (Editing by Simon Gardner and Alex Richardson)
