Sri Lanka Says Military Seizes Rebel-Held Village
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan soldiers seized a rebel-held village, destroyed four guerrilla bunkers and captured another in separate clashes in the island's northeast, the military said Tuesday. The rebels holding Periyakulam village in Mullaitivu district initially resisted but eventually fled under the attack by Sri Lankan forces, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.
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Casualty details were not immediately available, Nanayakkara said.
A day earlier, on Monday, troops attacked and destroyed four bunkers and captured a fifth in Mullaitivu district, the military said in statement.
Nanayakkara said there were no military casualties but that eight rebels were wounded in the bunker attacks.
It was not possible to contact rebel officials for comment because communication lines to the rebel-held territory have been severed.
Government forces have made rapid progress in recent months seizing a number of villages and important towns from the rebels and cornering them into a shrinking northeastern territory.
Authorities have vowed to crush the rebels and end their 25-year insurgency and say they are closing in on the rebels' northern headquarters in Kilinochchi. Other soldiers are meanwhile pushing toward Mullaitivu town, another guerrilla stronghold in the district of the same name on the northeastern coast.
Tamil Tiger rebels have fought since 1983 to create an independent state for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils who have suffered marginalization by successive governments controlled by majority ethnic Sinhalese.
More than 70,000 people have been killed in the violence.
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