January 04, 2009	Sunday	Muharram 06, 1430

COLOMBO, Jan 3: Sri Lankan troops advanced on Saturday on the military headquarters of the Tamil Tigers and engaged the rebels in fresh gunbattles, a day after capturing their de facto capital.

The defence ministry said ground forces, backed by helicopter gunships and war planes, were moving towards Mullaitivu, the jungle district along the northeastern seaboard, where the Tigers have their main military facilities.

“The battle for Mullaitivu has already begun,” the ministry said in a statement.

The air force used Mi-24 helicopter gunships to carry out four bombing raids on Saturday in support of the advancing troops while jet aircraft were also deployed to hit Tiger positions, a military spokesman said. He added that 10 such missions were carried out on Friday.

In the capital Colombo, a bomb went off at a commercial area of the city on Saturday, wounding three civilians and damaging several vehicles, police said. A suicide bombing in Colombo on Friday killed two people and wounded 36.

Troops fought their way into Kilinochchi, deep in the north, on Friday in one of the biggest blows for the rebels in years.

Defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said on Saturday the troops were 2km from Elephant Pass, a key rebel position in the neck of the northern Jaffna peninsula, and 6km from Mullaitivu town, and that troops would capture them soon.

Military officials say the rebels have in the past hit back with suicide bombings in the capital and elsewhere whenever they have come under pressure on the northern frontlines.

“We will take all possible measures to avert any more terrorist attacks. They (LTTE) are desperate now with the biggest defeats in the northern war front so they will try more attacks,” said an official.

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