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Sri Lankan president announces end of war against rebels

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-17 16:28

COLOMBO -- Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse on Saturday announced the end of the battle against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels as the military officials said earlier in the day that the army has, after massive fresh offensive, almost completed the control of the entire areas that the LTTE rebels have occupied for decades.

Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa speaks during the second day of the World Economic Forum annual meeting on the Middle East at the King Hussein Convention Centre at the Dead Sea May 16, 2009. [Xinhua]

The government forces have "finally defeated the LTTE militarily," said the president in a speech in Jordan where he was paying a visit.

"I will be going back to a country that has been totally freed from the barbaric acts of the LTTE. This freedom comes after 30 long years. My government's precise and well coordinated humanitarian operation has so far succeeded in rescuing over 210,000 civilians who were being used as human shields by the LTTE," Rajapakse was quoted as saying by the state radio Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation.

Defense officials said earlier Saturday the military has sealed off the entire northeastern Mullaithivu coast and has circled the LTTE forces in a small jungle.

The rebels facing ultimate defeat at the hands of the government troops are bracing for a final mass scale suicide attempt against government troops, said a statement of the Sri Lankan Defense Ministry.

Related readings:  Doctors flee only hospital in Sri Lanka war zone  Sri Lanka artillery kills 257 civilians  49 die in Sri Lanka hospital attack  Sri Lanka govt rejects Tamil truce  Over 100,000 flee Sri Lanka warzone

Defense ministry sources believed that the LTTE senior leaders are surrounded by several suicide bombers for one last attack against the troops in the final showdown.

Whereabouts of the rebel leader Velupillai Prabakaran and other senior leaders have been much speculated.

But the military said Saturday that they are still trapped in the rebels' last hold of about 2 sq kms in the western sector of Karayamullivaikkal in the northeastern Mullaithivu district.

Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the military spokesman, said that some 20,000 civilians had crossed over to the government control during the last two and a half days.

The army's civilian rescue mission on Saturday had braved a suicide bomb attempt by the rebels.

An explosives laden bus sent to attack the Army's 58 division Saturday morning was destroyed by the Army, Spokesman Nanayakkara said.

He said the rebels who face certain defeat are still trying to cause damage to the troops

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