November 17, 2008	Monday	Ziqa'ad 18, 1429

COLOMBO, Nov 16: Sri Lanka stepped up air attacks against Tamil rebels in the island’s north on Sunday as heavy fighting raged a day after troops re-captured a highly strategic town, the defence ministry said.

Mi-24 helicopter gunships and fighter jets were deployed to pound defence lines of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on the Jaffna peninsula and on the mainland, the defence ministry said.

“Air force fighter jets made successive air sorties at the LTTE forward defence line at Muhamalai in Jaffna on Sunday,” the ministry said.

It said helicopter gunships were also deployed to attack suspected Tamil Tiger positions in support of ground troops locked in combat with the separatists.

The attacks came a day after Sri Lanka’s president asked Tamil Tiger rebels to surrender after troops said they had re-taken the town of Pooneryn from the separatist guerillas following months of heavy fighting.

President Mahinda Rajapakse said in a televised address to the nation that security forces took Pooneryn and the main north-western coastal A-32 route on Saturday morning. The town was taken by troops after several failed attempts during 15 years of Tiger occupation.

Military officials said the fall of Pooneryn was a severe blow to the Tigers who are defending their main de facto capital of Kilinochchi, further southeast, amid a multi-pronged military thrust.

“Despite all their efforts, they failed in their bid to hold Pooneryn,” the Sunday Times defence analyst Iqbal Athas said. “That it was a humiliating defeat for the guerillas came from radio intercepts from the battle field.” The fall of Pooneryn shrank Tiger territory by about half and prevented the rebels from using the north-western seaboard to smuggle weapons and other supplies by boat from neighbouring India, military officials said.

They said the bigger advantage for the military was the removal of Tiger artillery guns at Pooneryn which had been used to hit the main Palaly airbase in the Jaffna peninsula and disrupted regular military flights.

The military has not given details of losses suffered by either side in the battle for Pooneryn, but Athas said both sides had suffered “very heavy casualties” in the fighting.

The government is banking on a military victory against the Tamil Tiger rebels after pulling out of a moribund Norwegian-arranged truce in January.

Security forces have in recent months stepped up their offensive in a bid to capture Kilinochchi, the political capital of the Tigers in the north of Sri Lanka, where they received visiting foreign dignitaries.

With the fall of Pooneryn, the military has taken the northwestern seaboard of the island and is poised to make a final push for Kilinochchi, defence officials said.

There had been no comment from the Tigers on the latest military action, but Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is due to make an annual speech on Nov 27 setting out his plans for the next year.—AFP