Category: Politics

Feb 9, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lankan government troops and Tamil Tiger guerrillas claimed on Saturday to have inflicted heavy casualties against each other in fierce fighting in the country’s north. The defence ministry said 25 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in heavy fighting on Friday, while the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) […]

Feb 09, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lankan rebel lawmaker Sripathi Sooriyaarachchi who broke away from the ruling party of President Mahinda Rajapakse last year, died in a car crash Saturday, police said. Police spokesman DIG NK Illangakoon said the car had crashed near the north-central town of Galgamuwa. His two police guards were also killed, […]

Feb 8, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lankan troops smashed bunkers of Tamil Tiger rebels in the island’s embattled north and kept up attacks elsewhere leaving 39 guerrillas dead, the island’s defence ministry said Friday. In the clashes along the front lines in Vavuniya district, security forces killed 22 guerrillas while destroying three of their bunkers […]

SYDNEY, Feb 8, 2008 (AFP) – Australia’s widely criticised “Pacific Solution” policy of holding asylum seekers on remote islands ended Friday when the last detainees flew out of Nauru, the government said.The 21 Sri Lankans who had been held on the tiny island in the South Pacific for nearly a year would be resettled in […]

Feb 7, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s former colonial ruler Britain has called for a “political process” to end Sri Lanka’s spiralling violence and condemned the latest wave of bombings against civilians.British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in a statement released here said that the Sri Lankan government’s unilateral withdrawal from a ceasefire with separatist rebels […]

Feb 7, 2008 (AFP) – Dozens of unsolved murders, abductions, and disappearances of journalists have cast a pall on open reporting in Sri Lanka as an ethnic civil war intensifies, a rights group said Thursday.At least 10 media workers have been killed over the past two years, while others have been abducted, tortured, or illegally […]

Feb 6, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lankan war planes Wednesday bombed targets inside Tamil Tiger-held territory in the north as ground forces clashed with the rebels, leaving 37 guerrillas and five soldiers dead, the defence ministry said.War planes hit a location near Iranamadu on Wednesday morning after government forces destroyed some 30 bunkers of the […]

Feb 5, 2008 (AFP) – Seven Sri Lankan sailors and their craft were missing on Tuesday following a sea battle with suspected Tamil Tiger guerrillas off the island’s northwest coast, military officials said. The clashes erupted when two navy speedboats moved to push back a fleet of poaching fishermen from neighbouring India, a military official […]

Feb 5, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka staged mass funerals for bomb blast victims on Tuesday after independence day festivities were marred by a string of attacks blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels.Scores of civilians have also died during the same period, according to both sides. No independent verification of the tolls is possible as the […]

Feb 04, 2008 (LBO) – A bomb exploded in the Colombo suburb of Mount Lavinia Monday, the military said, as Sri Lanka marked 60 years of independence from British rule. Official independence day celebrations are due to start in a few hours amid tight security. Military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said an explosive device had been […]

Feb 4, 2008 (AFP) – The number of people killed in a suicide bombing at Sri Lanka’s main railway station rose to 14 on Monday after two of the wounded died of their injuries, a hospital spokeswoman said.The twin blasts came despite heightened security across the island on Monday as Sri Lanka prepared to mark […]

Feb 4, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s president marked the island’s 60th anniversary of independence from Britain on Monday with a vow to defeat Tamil Tiger rebels, despite warnings the worsening conflict could lead to an aid cut. President Mahinda Rajapakse said the “challenge bestowed upon us by history is the defeat of terrorism.” “We […]