Sri Lanka army chief vows to defeat Tiger rebels

COLOMBO (AFP) — Sri Lanka's army chief has renewed a vow to defeat Tamil rebels, but refused to set a deadline for ending the decades-old conflict, saying the separatists remain a potent force, a report said Sunday.

Army general Sarath Fonseka said in an interview with the Lakbima weekly Sinhalese newspaper that a military campaign to capture the rebel-held Wanni region in the north begun in March last year was proceeding according to plan.

He however refused to give a timeframe for defeating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who have fought since 1972 to establish an independent homeland for minority Tamils in the Sinhalese-majority island.

"They are an organised force with a lot of experience. They have thousands of fighters. I don't conduct the war looking at deadlines and timeframes," Fonseka said in the interview published Sunday.

"Can a war that has been going on for more than 25 years be completed by March? But, what I say is -- give us a chance."

At the beginning of the year, in an interview with the state-run Sunday Observer, Fonseka said the LTTE had 3,000 fighters and pledged that the military could defeat them by mid-2008.

But in the interview published Sunday, he increased his estimate of rebel strength to 5,000 combatants, citing new intelligence reports.

On the ground, the military on Sunday defused a powerful bomb found by an off-duty sailor in a crowded area of the north-central town of Anuradhapura, officials said.

Security forces defused two more roadside bombs further north in neighbouring Vavuniya district, military officials said.

The military has accused the Tigers of committing a string of bomb attacks against civilians since an escalation in fighting on the ground following the government's formal withdrawal last month from a tattered truce signed in 2002.

The defence ministry said at least 42 rebels and four soldiers were killed in fierce fighting in northern Sri Lanka on Saturday.

In the heaviest fighting in Vavuniya district, at least 15 rebels and three troops were killed, the ministry said in a statement. Twenty-seven other rebels and one soldier were killed in separate clashes.

The ministry put the number of rebels killed since the start of the year at 1,088. A total of 48 soldiers were killed during the same period, it said.

The number of casualties reported by both the government and the Tigers cannot be independently verified as journalists and human rights workers are not allowed to enter the battle zone.

Fonseka said the military had killed 5,000 Tiger rebels last year, without mentioning the total losses for security forces.

However, he said 4,000 government soldiers had been wounded in the last two years, with half of them choosing to return to the battlefield.

Fonseka, who was severely injured by a Tamil rebel suicide bomber in April 2006, told the weekly that security forces were advancing on the rebel-held town of Kilinochchi, the Tigers' political capital in the north.

"This time when we take Kilinochchi, we will not leave it after a while. But we must realise that the offensive is going to take time," he said.

The government has repeatedly said it is confident of a military victory in the conflict, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Source: AFP