Rebels Advance in Bid to Retake Sri Lankan City

NEW DELHI —  Led by waves of suicide bombers, Tamil Tiger guerrillas in Sri Lanka reached the gates of Jaffna on Wednesday, squeezing thousands of government troops and setting the stage for a climactic battle in the country’s long civil war.

The rebels, who are seeking an independent homeland, claimed to have captured an important bridge that is within artillery range of the government’s Palali air base near Jaffna. The air base is the essential link between the besieged 40,000-strong army garrison and other government forces to the south.

Fighting raged Wednesday near the towns of Tanankilappu and Ariyalai, both just outside Jaffna. The Tigers appeared to be preparing for a final push into the city.

“Our fighting cadres are moving toward Jaffna city,” the clandestine Voice of Tigers radio said, according to a report by Associated Press. “We advise people in Jaffna to move to safe places so that they can avoid the fighting.”

Sri Lankan officials acknowledged Wednesday that the Tigers had breached army defenses in the area but denied that the guerrillas had captured the Navatkuli bridge--one of five entry points into the city. They said government troops were mounting a valiant defense.

Jaffna, on a peninsula of the same name, is surrounded on three sides by water, leaving government soldiers no escape route by land. Any evacuation would have to be carried out by sea or air.

“Troops in strength continue to hold the bridge at Navatkuli,” the government said in a statement Wednesday. “So far troops have repulsed many attempts of the terrorists to get closer to the bridge.”

The Tamils are a primarily Hindu minority in Sri Lanka, an island off the southeastern tip of India dominated by a Buddhist Sinhalese majority. The rebels have been struggling for independence since 1983. More than 60,000 people have died in the conflict.

The apparent advance by the Tigers on Wednesday marked another in a string of recent rebel successes in what is shaping up to be the most important campaign of the long civil war. The fighting came just two days after Sri Lankan leaders rejected the Tigers’ offer of a cease-fire that would have allowed the government troops to evacuate the peninsula.

The Tiger offensive, code-named Unceasing Waves III, scored its biggest breakthrough April 22 when it overran an important government base at Elephant Pass, a strip of land that connects the peninsula to the rest of the island.

As the Tigers moved closer to the city of Jaffna, both sides appeared to be preparing for a showdown. Government planes continued to ferry supplies to their besieged forces. Troops imposed a curfew throughout the peninsula, aid officials in Sri Lanka said Wednesday. There also were reports that Tiger guerrillas had begun crossing the shallow lagoon that separates Jaffna from the mainland south of the city.

In Colombo, the capital, government officials said they were hiking taxes on cigarettes and liquor to raise about $20 million for the war effort.

Independent confirmation of the battlefield claims is impossible, as the government has imposed censorship and forbids members of the media to enter areas of combat.

The seizure of the city, the cultural capital of the Tamils, would mark a huge victory for the Tigers and deal a death blow to the government’s efforts to hold the country together. The rebels ruled the city from 1990 to 1995 and consider it the capital of a future independent Tamil state.

Since losing the city five years ago, the Tigers have developed into a superior fighting force, military analysts say. The Tigers now control most of the Tamil-dominated areas in the north and east of the island.

Many people in Sri Lanka fear that the fight for Jaffna could leave thousands dead on both sides--and that civilians could get caught in the middle. Sri Lankan leaders have vowed to hold the city at all costs, and they appear to be making few preparations to evacuate their troops.

“If the troops are not going to pull out, then it will become a fight for survival,” Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, a Sri Lankan political analyst and director of the Center for Policy Alternatives, said by telephone. “If there is no outside intervention, there could be a blood bath.”

According to news reports, the Tigers launched their Wednesday attack at 3 a.m., unleashing wave after wave of suicide bombers. The rebel force has previously used suicide bombers, known as “Black Tigers,” to kill hundreds of civilians and government troops. The rebel group, known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, has been declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

“Although there were a large number of casualties among the attackers, LTTE human waves continued to assault without any respect for the lives of junior LTTE cadres,” the Sri Lankan statement said.

As the battle for Jaffna raged, diplomats stepped up their efforts to stop the fighting. A Norwegian official was due to arrive in New Delhi on Wednesday for talks with Indian leaders. Before the Tiger offensive began last month, the rebels and the Sri Lankan government had agreed to allow the Norwegians to broker a peace.

Indian officials in New Delhi contemplated some sort of humanitarian assistance to the Sri Lankan forces. The island nation’s leaders reportedly have asked India for help in evacuating their troops from Jaffna. India’s leaders have ruled out any kind of military intervention.

For all the activity, the diplomats appeared to hold out little hope that they would be able to avoid a battle in Jaffna. The best they could hope for, they said, was to get the two sides talking.

“That process could take years,” Bjorn Midthun of the Norwegian Embassy in New Delhi told Agence France-Presse.

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The Battle for Jaffna

Sri Lankan officials acknowledged that Tamil Tiger guerrillas had breached army defenses in the area of Jaffna. But they denied the guerrillas’ claim to have captured the Navatkuli bridge--one of five entry points into the city.

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Source: Compiled from AP and staff reports