Sri Lanka’s military said Tuesday it was trying to establish how the Tamil Tigers managed to buy light planes abroad, smuggle them onto the island and establish a rebel air force.
The probe follows the latest Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) air assault against the capital using two of their Czech-made aircraft.
The military shot down one aircraft just before it reached the intended target at the main airbase, while the second plane crashed into a tax building here on Friday night and exploded in a ball of fire.
“At this stage …

Sri Lankan security forces have killed at least 65 Tamil Tigers in a week of intense fighting that further reduced the territory under rebel control, according to the military.
The Tigers have been driven back into just 73 square kilometres (28 square miles) of jungle, military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said, having controlled large swathes of the north and the east of the island less than two years ago.
Officials say the rebels are increasingly desperate and may launch more attacks such as the air strike on the capital Colombo on Friday, when …

Zamboanga City/Manila: Nine armed men abducted a 36-year old Sri Lankan peace worker in war-torn southern Basilan Island in a pre-dawn attack on Friday, officials said.
Omar Jalil was roused from his sleep by nine gunmen, who forcibly entered his home in Maloong village in Lamitan City at 2:25am, said Basilan police director Senior Superintendent Salik Macapantar.
Jalil is with Nonviolent Peaceforce, a nonpartisan group that has been sending observers to the four-decade-old separatist struggle in the southern Philippines.

The Sri Lankan army says it has captured the last major naval base of Tamil Tiger rebels in the north-east of the island.
It says that about 15 rebel fighters – including three senior commanders – were killed in the fighting at Chalai. There has been no independent confirmation of the report, and no comment from the rebels. Earlier, the government said there would be no ceasefire with the rebels, despite international calls for talks.
Military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said that with the capture of Chalai, the army had now brought …

Patients are fleeing a hospital that was hit four times by artillery shells in the war between Tamil Tigers and government forces in northern Sri Lanka this week, the Red Cross said Tuesday.
The development came as independent observers handed The Associated Press dramatic pictures and video, showing scores of civilians killed or maimed. The images offered a rare glimpse of the growing toll the civil war is taking on the estimated 250,000 civilians trapped in the all-but-sealed conflict zone.

As the Sri Lankan military continued to push into a small corner of the island controlled by separatist guerrillas, three separate artillery attacks on Sunday struck a hospital overflowing with wounded patients, the last of them hitting a ward of women and children, according to international agencies and health workers. At least nine people were killed and 20 were wounded and the dead were still being counted Monday morning.

Pressure is building on Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tiger rebels to protect thousands of civilians caught up in the fighting on the island.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has expressed deep concern over the fate of the civilians – the UN says dozens are dead or injured.
And the European Union has asked the government to ensure that the civilians are spared in the fighting.
Sri Lanka’s army has pushed the rebels from their strongholds.

Mounting violence between rebel fighters and government troops along northern Sri Lanka has prompted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to call for the safety of civilians as humanitarian groups try to provide aid to some 250,000 people trapped in the region.
“The secretary-general is deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of civilians caught in intensified fighting in the Vanni region of Sri Lanka,” a spokesman for Ban said in a statement Monday.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Thousands of civilians have fled Sri Lanka’s northern war zone in recent days, crossing the front lines amid fierce fighting as the army closed in on the rebels’ last stronghold, the military said Friday.
The government says it hopes the exodus represents the start of a mass flight that will remove hundreds of thousands of bystanders from harm’s way as the military tries to crush the Tamil Tigers’ decades-old insurgency
Aid workers and diplomats have expressed growing concern for the fate of the civilians trapped in what …

Heavy fighting is reported around the sole remaining Tamil Tiger stronghold of Mullaitivu in Sri Lanka as the army presses ahead with its offensive.
The defence ministry said troops had captured one “administration base” with jets bombing jungle hideouts.
Rebel sources have not commented on the claim, but say civilians have been wounded by artillery fire.
Meanwhile doctors in the recently captured town of Kilinochchi say that healthcare is breaking down.