COLOMBO: Sri Lankan government troops have tightened their siege of the last strip of land on the island still controlled by Tamil Tiger rebels and poised for a final assault, the military said Friday.Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara told that two columns of troops had consolidated positions along a strip of coastline in the northeast captured from the ethnic rebels earlier this week. "The Tigers have no land escape routes left. We have troops in place to move in at anytime," another top military official said. "If not for the civilians still trapped inside, we would have gone in by now."Nanayakkara refused to say when the final assault would take place, asserting that troops "have to consider the civilians" still trapped in the territory held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Officials said sporadic fighting was continuing Friday, with the navy also fighting an offshore battle with LTTE rebels trying to flee by boat. Navy spokesman Mahesh Karunaratne said three rebel craft were sunk and 23 rebels killed. There was no comment from the Tigers, but the pro-rebel Tamilnet website said the guerrillas had sunk two naval craft in a sea battle. Tamilnet also said the Tigers had killed some 350 soldiers in fighting on Wednesday, a claim promptly denied by the military.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
Comments