COLOMBO: Intensifying their offensive to push the Tamil Tigers out of their last stretch of land, the Sri Lankan troops today killed at least 47 rebels, including two top commanders and captured a strategic area in Pudukudiyirippu, officials said today.Two top LTTE commanders, Gobith and Amuthab, who headed a special unit named after Prabhakaran's son "Charles Antony," were killed in fierce fighting in which troops wrested the village of Anandapuram, Defence Ministry sources said.The LTTE had been putting up a stiff resistance to prevent the Army from taking over the village which was its last road link for bringing in supplies and logistics.Police commanders attacked a group of Tigers in Sri Lanka's East killing 13 rebels. The battle in the forests near eastern Ampara district was fiercely fought for hours.Sources said that LTTE's explosive expert Paramanantha master was among the dead.Sri Lanka has driven out the Tigers from the eastern province, but officials said that pockets of Tiger resistance still remained.As the war between the government forces and the Tigers appears to be entering the last stages, more civilians trapped in the battle zone are coming over to the government-fixed IDP zones.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
Comments