05-17-2009, 11:14 PM
COLOMBO: Prabhakaran, the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) might be dead, according to a CNN-IBN report. The news channel quoted sources as saying that the reclusive rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and his top deputies may have died in an attack early this morning or committed mass suicide.
The body of rebel leader is taken to Sri Lankan army base in Panagoda for confirmation, as per the news channel’s claim.
Earlier, Sri Lanka's president Mahinda Rajapaksa had declared victory in his nation's quarter-century civil war with the Tamil Tigers rebels.
His troops had killed at least 70 rebels trying to escape the shrinking northern war zone on Sunday.
A triumph on the battlefield appeared inevitable after government forces captured the last bit of coastline under rebel control on Saturday, surrounding the remaining fighters in a 1.2-square mile (3.1-square kilometer) patch of land.
"My government, with the total commitment of our armed forces, has in an unprecedented humanitarian operation finally defeated the LTTE militarily," President Mahinda Rajapaksa said referring to the rebels by their formal name, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
"I will be going back to a country that has been totally freed from the barbaric acts of the LTTE," he said in a speech in Jordan that was distributed to the media in Sri Lanka.
The rebels, who once controlled a de facto state across much of the north, have been fighting since 1983 for a separate state for minority Tamils after decades of marginalization by the Sinhalese majority. Responsible for hundreds of suicide attacks — including the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi — the Tamil Tigers have been branded terrorists by the U.S., E.U. and India and shunned internationally.
The rebels also controlled a conventional army, with artillery units, a significant navy and even a tiny air force.
After repeated stalemates on the battlefield, the military broke through the rebel lines last year and forced the insurgents into a broad retreat, capturing their administrative capital at Kilinochchi in January and vowing to retake control over the rest of the country.
The rebels have insisted that if they are defeated in conventional battle, they will return to their guerrilla roots.
On Saturday morning, government troops sweeping in from the north and south seized control of the island's entire coastline for the first time in decades, sealing the rebels in a tiny pocket of territory and cutting off the possibility of a sea escape by the rebels' top leaders, the military said.
Even as Rajapaksa declared victory, the military reported that fighting continued to rage in the northeast war zone. Huge explosions could be heard across the battlefield as rebels detonated their ammunition stocks and artillery dumps, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.
Early Sunday, the insurgents tried to escape from the surrounding troops in six boats across a lagoon. But army troops thwarted the rebel attempt, killing a large number of rebels, said the military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara.
So far, 70 bodies of rebel fighters have been recovered, he said.
The body of rebel leader is taken to Sri Lankan army base in Panagoda for confirmation, as per the news channel’s claim.
Earlier, Sri Lanka's president Mahinda Rajapaksa had declared victory in his nation's quarter-century civil war with the Tamil Tigers rebels.
His troops had killed at least 70 rebels trying to escape the shrinking northern war zone on Sunday.
A triumph on the battlefield appeared inevitable after government forces captured the last bit of coastline under rebel control on Saturday, surrounding the remaining fighters in a 1.2-square mile (3.1-square kilometer) patch of land.
"My government, with the total commitment of our armed forces, has in an unprecedented humanitarian operation finally defeated the LTTE militarily," President Mahinda Rajapaksa said referring to the rebels by their formal name, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
"I will be going back to a country that has been totally freed from the barbaric acts of the LTTE," he said in a speech in Jordan that was distributed to the media in Sri Lanka.
The rebels, who once controlled a de facto state across much of the north, have been fighting since 1983 for a separate state for minority Tamils after decades of marginalization by the Sinhalese majority. Responsible for hundreds of suicide attacks — including the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi — the Tamil Tigers have been branded terrorists by the U.S., E.U. and India and shunned internationally.
The rebels also controlled a conventional army, with artillery units, a significant navy and even a tiny air force.
After repeated stalemates on the battlefield, the military broke through the rebel lines last year and forced the insurgents into a broad retreat, capturing their administrative capital at Kilinochchi in January and vowing to retake control over the rest of the country.
The rebels have insisted that if they are defeated in conventional battle, they will return to their guerrilla roots.
On Saturday morning, government troops sweeping in from the north and south seized control of the island's entire coastline for the first time in decades, sealing the rebels in a tiny pocket of territory and cutting off the possibility of a sea escape by the rebels' top leaders, the military said.
Even as Rajapaksa declared victory, the military reported that fighting continued to rage in the northeast war zone. Huge explosions could be heard across the battlefield as rebels detonated their ammunition stocks and artillery dumps, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.
Early Sunday, the insurgents tried to escape from the surrounding troops in six boats across a lagoon. But army troops thwarted the rebel attempt, killing a large number of rebels, said the military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara.
So far, 70 bodies of rebel fighters have been recovered, he said.
