The Sri Lankan military says it has taken total control of the northern Jaffna peninsula, one of the Tamil rebels’ last remaining strongholds of power.
The military says it seized control of Chundikkulam village Wednesday after a deadly battle with the rebels.
The rebels have not responded to the announcement, and journalists blocked from the war zone have not independently verified the military’s claim.

COLOMBO (AFP) — Helicopter gunships and war planes attacked suspected Tamil Tiger strong points in northern Sri Lanka on Monday while at least 19 rebels were killed in ground battles, the defence ministry said.
Aircraft hit two positions of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at Iranamadu, just south of their political capital of Kilinochchi which fell to government forces earlier this month, the ministry said.

Sri Lankan troops fought toward the shrinking strongholds of the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels on Sunday, the military said, seeking a crushing battlefield victory to end one of Asia’s longest insurgent ground wars.
The military said it had killed at least 24 rebels after a series of confrontations on Saturday in the small northeastern wedge of jungle which is all that is left of the Tigers’ self-proclaimed state.
In the course of fighting, troops captured two rebel camps and a 2.5 km (1 mile) long airstrip with two hangars the military said …

Sri Lankan soldiers pressured the Tamil Tigers’ last stronghold on the Jaffna Peninsula on Wednesday, while the separatist rebels vowed to overcome the latest in a series of battlefield losses.
Soldiers began sandwiching the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Tuesday from the north and south of the bottleneck linking the island to the peninsula, and skirmished Wednesday, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka (AP) — Battle tanks rumbled north, attack helicopters flew overheard and artillery fire roared through the jungles as Sri Lankan forces pushed ahead Sunday with an offensive aimed at capturing the Tamil Tigers’ last strongholds and crushing the rebel group.
A rebel-affiliated Web site reported that the insurgents stalled a military advance on the road to its northeastern stronghold of Mullaittivu killing 43 soldiers and wounding 80 others Sunday, two days after the military seized the rebels’ administrative capital of Kilinochchi.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Sri Lankan air force jets and helicopters bombed a series of rebel targets in the north and northeast, the military said Saturday, as soldiers pressed deeper into Tamil Tiger territory a day after capturing the rebels’ de facto capital.
The fall of Kilinochchi on Friday dealt a devastating blow to the insurgents’ 25-year campaign to create an independent state for ethnic minority Tamils. It has squeezed them into 620 square miles (1,605 square kilometers) they still hold in the northeast.
Rebel-affiliated TamilNet Web site said the Tamil …

Sri Lanka has stepped up air strikes against suspected Tamil Tiger rebel targets in the country’s north, a day after ground troops seized control of a highly strategic town.
The defence ministry says helicopter gunships and fighter jets have pounded defence lines of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on the Jaffna peninsula and on the mainland.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan air force jets bombed a rebel training camp in the north as ground forces waged new battles with Tamil Tiger rebels across the front lines, the military said Wednesday.
The new fighting came amid a major government offensive aimed at defeating the rebel group and ending the Indian Ocean island nation’s 25-year-old civil war.
Air force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said fighter jets struck a rebel camp late Tuesday and reported accurately hitting their target.

Sri Lankan soldiers have entered the strategically important Tamil Tiger stronghold of Pooneryn, according to the ministry of defence.
The move follows months of fighting and officials say pitched battles are still taking place in the area.
If the army succeeds in taking control, it will have access to the land route up the north-west coast to Jaffna.
The peninsula has been cut off by territory held by the rebels, who want a separate state for the Tamil people.
The Tamil Tigers have not yet commented on the reports.

Sri Lanka’s army overran a base of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on the northwestern coast and cut a main north-south road as part of its offensive to capture the rebel headquarters.
The base at Nachchikuda is the group’s “major strongpoint in the northwestern coastal border,” the Defense Ministry said on its Web site late yesterday. The LTTE hasn’t commented.