Category: Politics

May 24, 2007 (AFP) – Heavy clashes erupted Thursday between government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels on a remote islet off Sri Lanka’s northern Jaffna peninsula, military sources said.Government troops and Tamil rebels have been locked in combat following the breakdown of a 2002 Norwegian-arranged truce. Nearly 5,000 people have died in the last 18 […]

May 24, 2007 (AFP) – Tamil Tiger rebels blew up an army bus in Sri Lanka’s capital Thursday, killing at least one soldier, just hours after the guerrillas said they had also stormed a naval base and killed 35 sailors. The escalation in violence came days after the Tigers, who have been fighting for a […]

May 24, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka distanced itself Thursday from opposition to Bernard Kouchner, who was named by the European Union to monitor human rights on the tropical island and is France’s new foreign minister.Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said he was not against Kouchner, even though the troubled island’s ambassador-designate to Geneva […]

May 22, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lankan fighter jets bombed a suspected Tamil Tiger training facility inside rebel-held territory on Tuesday, the defence ministry said.Nearly 5,000 people have been killed in the latest surge of fighting that began in December 2005, according to the defence ministry.Warplanes hit an area south of Mankulam, about 300 kilometres […]

May 21, 2007 (AFP) – Four members of Sri Lanka’s security forces were killed and five wounded in separate attacks by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels on Monday, the defence ministry and police said. A mine that targeted troops travelling in a tractor in the northern district of Vavuniya killed two soldiers and injured four others, […]

May 20, 2007 (AFP) – Six people were killed and 10 others were wounded as government troops traded fire with Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka’s war-torn north, the defence ministry said Sunday.Security forces beat back an attempt by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to break through the frontline at Muhamalai in Jaffna […]

May 20, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s separatist Tamil rebels on Sunday vowed never to return to peace negotiations unless the government halts a military campaign against them. . The leader of the political wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), S. P. Thamilselvan, said attacks by government forces would not force them […]

CHENNAI, India, May 20, 2007 (AFP) – Eleven southern Indian fishermen who went missing in March returned at the weekend alleging that they had been abducted at sea and kept captive by Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels. The Tamil Tiger rebels rely on small ships and boats to smuggle black market weapons to the northern […]

COLOMBO, May 19, 2007 (AFP) – Five family members, including two boys aged four and eight, were hacked to death on Saturday in a town just outside the Sri Lankan capital in what police said may have been a family feud. Unidentified attackers killed K. W. Tillakaratne, 36, his wife, their two children and the […]

May 17, 2007 (AFP) – Security forces shot dead at least 20 Tamil Tiger rebels in northern Sri Lanka in a fresh outbreak of fighting, the defence ministry said Thursday.More than 4,800 people have been killed in the latest upsurge of fighting that began in December 2005.Troops on Thursday recovered bodies of six of the […]

COLOMBO, May 17, 2007 (AFP) – A trawler suspected of smuggling weapons, possibly for Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, has been sunk by the coastguard of the Maldives, the latter’s foreign minister said Thursday.“Five people in the trawler jumped overboard when it was attacked and we are going to question them,” Maldivian Foreign Minister Ahamed […]

May 16, 2007 (LBO) — Sri Lanka Wednesday appointed Chamal Rajapakse, brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse, as the new minister of ports and aviation filling a post held by sacked minister Mangala Samaraweera, officials said.President Rajapakse had sworn in the new minister early Wednesday, prior to meeting the heads of newspaper editors at his heavily […]