Relentless fighting kills 41 in Sri Lanka: military
COLOMBO (Reuters) - At least 40 people were killed for a second straight day in the Sri Lankan military's push into rebel Tamil Tiger territory, the military said Friday, a day after a failed suicide attack targeting a minister.
Air force jets also kept up relentless strikes on Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) targets, part of a concentrated seek-and-destroy strategy to gradually regain rebel-held ground while wiping out as many guerrillas as possible.
The battle is now concentrated around Kilinochchi, the Tigers' headquarter town 330 km (205 miles) north of the capital, Colombo. It is a strategic and symbolic prize for President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government.
"Jets attacked an LTTE senior leader's hideout, a command center and a Black Tiger camp in Kilinochchi this morning," air force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said. The Black Tigers are the LTTE's elite unit, groomed for suicide missions.
The Tigers later said that the jets had targeted civilians.
"Two civilians including a schoolteacher were killed and seven more wounded in an air strike this morning," the LTTE said in an e-mailed statement.
A later raid hit rebels gathered near the northwestern port of Nachikkudah, another frontline area, the air force said.
The LTTE says it is fighting to create a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils, who have complained of marginalization by successive governments led by the Sinhalese majority since independence from Britain in 1948.
Troops are 2 km (1 mile) from the edge of Kilinochchi after an intensified three-month push, the bloodiest period since the government in January accused the rebels of using a 2002 ceasefire to re-arm and threw out the pact.
Fighting Thursday killed 39 Tigers and wounded 21, while two soldiers were killed and 12 were wounded, the military said.
The tolls are all but impossible to verify, with both sides engaging in regular distortions for propaganda purposes. The war zone is also closed to most journalists.
The military's growing confidence and apparent success in the north has sparked worry that the Tigers, on U.S., E.U. and Indian terrorism lists for their repeated use of bombings in the 25-year war, will step up their campaign in Colombo.
Overnight, another civilian died from wounds inflicted when a suicide bomber tried to kill the agriculture minister as his convoy passed through a Colombo suburb Thursday.
The minister was unharmed, but his deputy and another senior ministry official were wounded.
(Writing by Bryson Hull; Editing by Paul Tait)
