"The United States is appalled by continuing physical attacks and threats against media personnel in Sri Lanka," State Department acting spokesman Robert Wood said in a statement. "These serious reports are disturbing indicators of the deteriorating atmosphere for media independence in Sri Lanka."

Editor Upali Thennakoon, editor of the Sinhalese language weekly newspaper Rivira, was stabbed in the face and beaten by a gang of assailants on motorcycles as he drove to work. His wife was injured as she sought to protect him. More...Discuss this story Published: Fri Jan 23 22:05:23 EST 2009

So they turn away from the barbed wire and stacks of sandbags and camouflage and walk back into town, where they squat in the shade of the main government office, waiting for the road home to open — and knowing it won't, until home has changed so much that they will scarcely recognize it.

These women (along with their children and a few old men) come from a war zone — a region of Sri Lanka called Vanni, where until a few weeks ago the vicious Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) maintained a de facto independent state Now, a punishing air, sea and land campaign by the Sri Lankan military has driven the Tigers into a tiny corner of the north, their backs against the bright blue sea.

In their retreat, the rebels have taken with them most of the civilians who lived under their control — an estimated 300,000 people. More...Discuss this story Published: Fri Jan 23 23:29:32 EST 2009

The fighting came amid a major government offensive aimed at destroying the group and ending this Indian Ocean island nation's quarter-century civil war. In recent weeks troops forced the rebels out of much of their heartland in the north, boxing them into a small corner of the northeast.

In fighting Thursday, government forces overran a small rebel camp in the Mullaittivu district, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.

The camp, which probably had housed 30 or 40 fighters, consisted of two huts and a weapons cache of more than 200 mines and roadside bombs, he said.

``They may have just left it when they were withdrawing,'' he said.

In other fighting along the front lines, troops recovered the bodies of five rebel fighters, the military said.

Rebel spokesman were not available for comment, but the rebel-affiliated Web site TamilNet reported that the insurgents killed 40 government soldiers in fighting.

Independent accounts of the fighting are not available because reporters are barred from the war zone.

The new fighting came amid reports of growing civilian casualties.

On Thursday, health officials in the rebel-held area reported that the military had shelled a hospital and a village inside a government-declared ``safe zone'' for displaced families, killing at least 30 people.

Health officials said at least 67 civilians were killed in shelling since Tuesday.

The military denied launching the attack on the ``safe zone'' and accused the rebels of carrying out the assault themselves to keep the civilians out of the area.

Aid groups and diplomats have expressed fears over the safety of the hundreds of thousands of civilians reportedly trapped in rebel-held territory. Some human rights organizations accused the rebels of using the civilians as human shields to block the government offensive.

The rebels have fought since 1983 to establish an independent state for minority Tamils, who have suffered decades of marginalization at the hands of successive governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the violence. Published: Fri Jan 23 22:26:37 EST 2009