LTTE is shrinking in Sri Lanka

A month back I came through a news in which Sri Lanka claimed that it is close to finishing the 25 year old bloody civil war in the island nation. The military offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) continued throughout the month of January driving the Tamil tigers rebel from their stronghold dens into a shrinking patch of jungle.

They captured the northern Sri Lankan town of Kilinochchi in a blietzkrieg that stunned the world ten years before, finally Tamil Tigers on January 2 lost it to a military determined this time to shrink them into negligible. The fall of rebels' de facto capital after months of fighting was a huge blow to the LTTE. Four days later the Cabinet redisignated Tigers as a terrorist group stating that they are not allowing civilians to leave war zone.

On January 9th the final assault came when the ground troops backed by armour, artllery and aerial bombardment from various directions towards Elephant pass and finally captured the rebel's former army base and Gateway to Jaffna Peninsula. It was for the first time in 23 years when the tigers were cleared from A-9 road linking Jaffna to Kandy.

Five days later on 14th january there was total control of government over the rebel held places in Jaffna, giving another blow to Tamil rebels.

On 25th January Mullaitivu was another blow to rebels which had held this costal town for 13 years since 1996.Army chief Lt. Gen Sarath Fonseka on national television declared that 95% of war was over and victory was iminent. On 29th January army secured Visnamadu town, which was considered as nerve ceter of LTTE,s artillery power and captured a submarine craft and other vessels after which President Mahinda Rajpaksa issued ultimatum to the LTTE to release civilians in the war zone within 48 hours to ensure their safety and security. Reacting to this the weakened LLTE mooted agreed for an internationally mooted ceasefire.

Now the Sri Lankan Government claims that LTTE is fallen to the ground but LTTE supremo is still untraceable. The hunt is on. The rebel is fighting for an independent state for minority Tamils, who had suffered marginalization at the hands of government controlled by Sinhallese, in the northern and eastern part of the country. Now the million dollar question arises had the fight ended, will Prabhakaran remain underground, or this is just a pause to regain their strength?