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Sri Lanka pushes into rebel-held jungles
iht.com,
January 7, 2009 .
Small teams of Sri Lankan soldiers have pushed ahead of the front lines in the north to root out rebels from their heavily mined jungle hide-outs, the military said Wednesday.
The thrust into the northern jungles came amid a military offensive that drove the rebels from their administrative capital of Kilinochchi and forced them into a shrinking pocket of territory in the northeast roughly the size of Los Angeles.
The government has said it aimed to crush the rebel group and end this Indian Ocean island nation's quarter-century-old civil war.
Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said Wednesday that soldiers in groups of four to eight were slipping over the front lines into the thick jungles east of the captured town of Kilinochchi to flush the Tamil Tigers from their extensive network of bunkers there.
The troops were using small arms, though they were supported by artillery and mortar fire when needed, he said.
The fighting was complicated by the buried land mines and booby traps consisting of trip wires rigged to artillery shells that the rebels planted across the area, he said.
"We are suffering casualties from mortars and booby traps more than from fighting," Nanayakkara said. He did not give details on the number of casualties.
In other more built-up areas of the front lines, the troops were fighting a more conventional battle with the rebels, he said.
The military said Wednesday it recovered the bodies of five rebel fighters killed in battle in the Mullaittivu and Kilinochchi districts.
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Published: Wed Jan 7 08:59:56 EST 2009
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