Sri Lanka Launches Assault On Rebels

Sri Lankan fighter jets and attack helicopters bombed rebel bunkers and a flotilla of boats in the northern war zone Friday as government troops breached another section of the Tamil Tigers defense fortifications.

The fighting came amid a sharp escalation in the 25-year-old civil war between government forces and the ethnic Tamil rebels. The military has forced the rebels to retreat from large swaths of their stronghold in the north in recent months.

On Friday, air force jets pounded rebel bunker lines and other fortifications in the Kilinochchi district in the north, the military said in a statement. Helicopters also attacked a flotilla of boats belong to the Sea Tigers, the rebel naval wing, that were gathered in a lagoon, the military said.

With most communication to the north cut off in recent months, the rebels could not be reached for comment.

Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said a navy vessel destroyed a suspected rebel ship early Saturday. The 100-foot ship was "engulfed in a ball of fire" after it opened fire on a patrol boat, the navy said in a statement.

Four small attack boats that came to support the Tiger vessel, which was carrying "warlike materials," were also destroyed, it said.

Government forces also broke through a section of an earth berm and moat fortification the rebels built to protect their administrative capital of Kilinochchi, the government said.

Troops destroyed several rebel bunkers and established a beachhead on the other side, the government said in a statement. The government said Thursday that troops had broken through the fortifications north of Kilinochchi.

The government said last month the town's capture was "imminent," but it remains in rebel hands despite a series of bloody battles in the area in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, fighting continued to rage in the Jaffna and Kilinochchi districts, the military said.

The Tamil Tigers have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils who suffered decades of marginalization by successive governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the violence.