29 Dec 2006 11:26:08 GMT
By Sanjeev Miglani
COLOMBO, Dec 29 (Reuters) - An eastern stronghold of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels will likely fall to the military soon following weeks of fighting that has forced thousands of civilians to flee, a brigadier said on Friday.
Vakarai, the scene of intense artillery battles with the Tigers since November, is the last major rebel-held town on the east coast after the military drove them out of territory near the strategic port of Trincomalee further north.
"It's a matter of time now. It could be days, or weeks, but we will get there," Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe, the top military spokesman, told Reuters in a interview.
"The only thing holding us back is the fear of civilian casualties; they are using them as human shields," he said.
Analysts said the offensive on Vakarai was a key step in the government's plan to clear the Tigers from the east. Once the rebels are pushed out, the government plans to hold local elections that a faction of renegade rebels opposed to the Tigers and aligned to the military are expected to win.
"Once it's cleared, there won't be any big bases left in the area. There will be sporadic incidents, but not like this," Samarasinghe said.
But the rebels, who want to create a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east, have warned of a full-scale war if the military pressed its offensive.
The Tigers accuse the military of war-mongering, and Nordic truce monitors say the plan violates the terms of a now tattered 2002 ceasefire.
But Samarasinghe said the Tigers had been carrying out attacks on the army from near urban centres, provoking a retaliation.
"They started this ... it's because of them that we now have 30,000 people who have left the area, coming through jungles to escape their clutches," he said.
He estimated that between 8,000 and 10,000 civilians, most of them elderly and children, were left in the Vakarai area.
"They won't be able to keep the civilians for long. Food and medicine is in short supply," he said.
The United Nations earlier this month urged both sides to stop the shelling after the death of eight refugees who drowned at sea when the fishing boats they were fleeing in capsized.
Samarasinghe said the government had urged the international community and truce monitors to mediate with the rebels to allow the last group of civilians in Vakarai to leave by road, instead of the risky journey through jungles or sea.
"We have said we will open the road blocks, let the civilians leave, and these are the elderly and children," he said.
More than 3,000 civilians, troops and rebel fighters have been killed so far this year in a series of ambushes, air raids, ground and naval battles and suicide bombings, stoking fears of a return to a civil that has killed nearly 70,000 since 1983.
By Sanjeev Miglani
COLOMBO, Dec 29 (Reuters) - An eastern stronghold of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels will likely fall to the military soon following weeks of fighting that has forced thousands of civilians to flee, a brigadier said on Friday.
Vakarai, the scene of intense artillery battles with the Tigers since November, is the last major rebel-held town on the east coast after the military drove them out of territory near the strategic port of Trincomalee further north.
"It's a matter of time now. It could be days, or weeks, but we will get there," Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe, the top military spokesman, told Reuters in a interview.
"The only thing holding us back is the fear of civilian casualties; they are using them as human shields," he said.
Analysts said the offensive on Vakarai was a key step in the government's plan to clear the Tigers from the east. Once the rebels are pushed out, the government plans to hold local elections that a faction of renegade rebels opposed to the Tigers and aligned to the military are expected to win.
"Once it's cleared, there won't be any big bases left in the area. There will be sporadic incidents, but not like this," Samarasinghe said.
But the rebels, who want to create a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east, have warned of a full-scale war if the military pressed its offensive.
The Tigers accuse the military of war-mongering, and Nordic truce monitors say the plan violates the terms of a now tattered 2002 ceasefire.
But Samarasinghe said the Tigers had been carrying out attacks on the army from near urban centres, provoking a retaliation.
"They started this ... it's because of them that we now have 30,000 people who have left the area, coming through jungles to escape their clutches," he said.
He estimated that between 8,000 and 10,000 civilians, most of them elderly and children, were left in the Vakarai area.
"They won't be able to keep the civilians for long. Food and medicine is in short supply," he said.
The United Nations earlier this month urged both sides to stop the shelling after the death of eight refugees who drowned at sea when the fishing boats they were fleeing in capsized.
Samarasinghe said the government had urged the international community and truce monitors to mediate with the rebels to allow the last group of civilians in Vakarai to leave by road, instead of the risky journey through jungles or sea.
"We have said we will open the road blocks, let the civilians leave, and these are the elderly and children," he said.
More than 3,000 civilians, troops and rebel fighters have been killed so far this year in a series of ambushes, air raids, ground and naval battles and suicide bombings, stoking fears of a return to a civil that has killed nearly 70,000 since 1983.
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