Sri Lankan military captures key rebel base in north

Sri Lankan forces sweeping down from the north captured an important Tamil Tiger base on the Jaffna Peninsula on Thursday, further boxing in the retreating rebel group, the military said.

The capture of Pallai on the narrow isthmus connecting Jaffna with the rest of the island nation came after the rebels reportedly withdrew much of their artillery and heavy weaponry from the peninsula into their jungle strongholds to the south.  

Analysts said the group appeared to be sacrificing its bases on the peninsula and consolidating its forces in the Mullaittivu area, where it will likely make a stand against the government.

The rebels were not available for comment Wednesday as most communications in their region have been severed. Independent accounts of the fighting were not available because the government has barred journalists and foreign aid groups from the war zone.

The new fighting kept up the pressure on the beleaguered rebels a day after the government reinstituted a ban on the group, ruling out the resumption of any peace efforts in the foreseeable future.

Also Thursday, the editor of a newspaper highly critical of the government was shot and killed by gunmen as he drove to work, police said.

The attack on Lasantha Wickramatunga of the Sunday Leader newspaper came two days after men armed with grenades and assault rifles attacked a private television station and torched much of its equipment.  

Media rights groups have accused the government and its allies of trying to stifle dissent by vilifying opposition journalists as unpatriotic rebel sympathizers and creating an atmosphere that encourages violence against them.

Rebels losing ground

Sri Lankan forces have broken through the rebels' defences in recent months, seizing huge chunks of rebel-held lands, capturing their administrative capital of Kilinochchi and trapping the insurgents in a tiny section of the northeast.

Government officials say they aim to crush the group and end this Indian Ocean island nation's 25-year-old civil war.  

For more than a decade, the rebels have run a de facto state, squeezed between the government-held Jaffna Peninsula — the northernmost point in the country — and the rest of the island to the south.

While government troops pushed deep into rebel territory from the south, troops in the Jaffna Peninsula had been unable to break open the Tamil Tigers' heavily fortified northern lines until earlier this week when they overran the front at Muhamalai.

Those forces pushed southward about five kilometres, capturing Pallai, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.  

In other fighting, air force jets attacked two rebel boats that were camouflaged and anchored in a lagoon in the north Thursday morning after pounding a group of rebels late Wednesday who appeared to be working to construct new defence fortifications.  

The rebels have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, who have suffered decades of marginalization by governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority. The conflict has killed more than 70,000 people.